Before Time
by Vampire-Badger
Summary: Modern fantasy AU. Six months ago, Shay was living on the other side of the country, surrounded by friends, and looking at a bright future at one of the best alchemical research institutions in the country. Then came the accident. Now he's exiled, stuck doing boring enchantments all day for next to no pay, and there's a psychic toddler telling him he 's going to kill someone. Fun.
1. Chapter 1

"There's someone here to see you."

Shay looked up from his work just long enough to raise his eyebrows at the nervous intern that had come to bring him the news. Then he went back to the flask of pewter he'd been pouring over before the interruption. After thirty seconds, however, the intern still hadn't left.

"What do you want?" he asked. "I'm trying to get this finished."

"There's someone here to see you," the intern said again.

Shay shook his head. "No," he said. "There isn't."

The intern shuffled his feet uncertainly and pinched his face together in worry. He was a pudgy kid, late teens or early twenties, with a pudding bowl haircut and thick eyebrows. The worried look really wasn't doing him any favors. "I'm sorry," he said. "But he specifically asked for you."

Except that Shay was new to the city. He had cut ties with most of his friends when he moved, and his family was either dead or on another continent. It was extremely unlikely that someone had actually come to see him. "What was the name they gave you?" he asked, because the intern was even newer than him and hadn't had a chance to learn how things worked here yet.

"He didn't," the intern admitted. "He described you. I… suppose I could have made a mistake."

Shay put aside the flask and stepped out from behind his desk. "I'll go see what's going on," he said. "Get back to… whatever you're supposed to be doing."

"Getting coffee," the intern said glumly, and disappeared in the direction of the breakroom. Shay watched him go for half a second, then took the stairs down to the library. The stone steps curved around the perimeter of the tower, and by the time Shay reached the first floor he was both annoyed by the interruption and slightly dizzy. That was the problem with towers- they were traditional, sure, but the stairs were a pain and the stone walls kept it constantly cold inside.

Eventually, he reached ground level and walked across the thick stone floor to the security checkpoint near the door. It was half past two in the afternoon, and on most days this would have meant the whole ground floor was deserted, apart from the security guard that watched over the door. In fact, for a few seconds Shay thought it was still deserted- it wasn't until he was only a foot or two away that he heard voices and realized the guard wasn't alone.

"…think it's a little too big on you." That was obviously the guard's voice. He was a friendly enough guy, and possibly the closest thing to a friend Shay had managed to make in the half year since he'd moved to the city.

"It is not! I like it." That voice, on the other hand, was completely unfamiliar. It also obviously belonged to a child, possibly the first child Shay had ever seen in the tower.

"Can you even see anything while you're wearing it?"

"Nope!"

Shay rounded the corner to the sound of the small child giggling and the guard chuckling appreciatively. The child was maybe four or five years old, even smaller than Shay had expected, kneeling on the swivel chair behind the guard's desk and peeking out from under the brim of the guard's hat. It was in fact far too large for him, although judging by the size of his smile this didn't bother him at all. The guard was sitting on a folding chair next to the little boy, chuckling as the kid tried to adjust the hat to let himself see while wearing it.

"What exactly is going on here?" he asked slowly, eyeing the two of them suspiciously. "Gist?"

"Ah!" The guard turned to look at Shay, giving the kid's chair a little push as he did so. It spun around lazily a couple of times (the kid laughed like a mad thing), then settled, facing Shay. "Cormac, you have a visitor."

"What- the kid?"

Gist frowned. "You don't know him?"

"Never seen him before in my life." Shay looked around for somewhere to sit, and found a second folding chair leaning against the wall. He shook it out and sat down in front of the kid. For a second, he felt weirdly nervous; he didn't have any children of his own, no nephews or nieces or neighbor kids. This was very probably the first conversation he'd had with someone this young since he was a toddler himself. "Hi," he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. "I'm Shay Cormac. I heard you've been looking for me."

The kid nodded, but in an absentminded kind of way- he was still preoccupied trying to fix his borrowed hat. "Yea!" he said. "I saw you."

"Um…" What was that supposed to mean? "You saw me and followed me? Why?"

The little boy finally gave up on the hat and pulled it off his head. Instead of handing it back to Gist, he hugged it close to his chest like a comfort blanket. "I didn't follow you," he said stubbornly. "I just saw you."

Shay looked pleadingly at Gist, hoping for some kind of guidance; were all small children this nonsensical? Gist returned the look with a meaningful nod, then leaned forward and tilted the child's chin up, just slightly so that Shay could see the boy's eyes. They were blue, and very, very pale. Gist didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. Those eyes explained everything.

"Oh," Shay said. Well then, that changed… everything. "Do you want to tell me more? About what you saw, maybe? Or just your name?"

"Arno," the boy said. He smiled shyly at Shay. "Arno Dorian."

"Arno." What was that, French? "What did you see me do, Arno?"

The kid took a deep breath, clutching the hat so tightly his fingers started to turn white. "You killed my daddy," he said. "Please tell me why."

-/-

There was no question of Shay going back to work after that. Arno wouldn't say anything else after accusing Shay of murder, so eventually Shay and Gist left him to amuse himself with the swivel chair and the guard hat, and shifted to the other side of the desk for an emergency consultation.

"Have you ever heard of this kid's dad?" Gist asked. He wasn't smiling, unusually for him.

"No," Shay said. He glanced sideways at Arno, then back to Gist. "I've never heard of anyone called Dorian."

"Not yet," Gist said.

"Yea," Shay agreed glumly. "Did you see his eyes?"

"Hard to miss," Gist said. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing," Shay said firmly. "I'm going to send him home, and do my best to forget. I'm not a _murderer_."

"But Arno said-"

"I know what he said. That's why he has to leave. The less I know about him and his father, the less chance any of this has of coming true."

Gist nodded and pulled out his phone. "I'm looking him up," he said, thumbs already tapping his search into google. Shay craned his neck to watch what popped up. 'Arno Dorian' returned nothing but a few obviously unrelated results, but when Shay suggested Gist just search for Arno's last name, something popped up at once.

"Charles Dorian," Gist read aloud. "He's got his own Wikipedia article."

"So does that animated gecko that does commercials for car insurance," Shay said. " _Everybody_ has a Wikipedia page these days."

"Not like this one," Gist said. His eyes scanned the page in quick, back and forth motions while Shay waited patiently for the security guard to finish the article. His attention wandered back to Arno, who was still watching Shay in absolute silence. It was… well, there was definitely something creepy about the way that kid kept staring. Probably it was the eyes.

"He's a high mage," Gist said at last, pulling Shay's attention back toward him. "Works with the government mostly, it looks like." He frowned and tapped his phone screen. "Most of the stuff he works on is really technical, you'd probably have a better chance of understanding it than me." He frowned at Shay.

"Let me see?"

Gist passed the phone over to Shay, who scanned it as well. The work listed there was _extremely_ high level- Shay was impressed even before he got to the bottom and saw the last entry on the list. "He was the lead on the Aurum project," he said. "Holy _shit_."

Gist kicked at his ankle and jerked his head meaningfully toward Arno. Language. Right. "What's Aurum mean?"

"It's Latin for gold," Shay explained. "They were the ones that figured out the lead to gold thing."

"Oh." Gist looked impressed at that, which didn't surprise Shay- people had been trying to turn lead into gold since the field of alchemy was first formed, but it hadn't been until five years ago that a reliable method was actually discovered. Most alchemists were people like Shay, working in mage towers like this one on enhancing less interesting metals for durability, appearance, things like that. Turning one metal into another was a much more difficult skill, and lead to gold was… it was something else entirely.

"I'm surprised I've never heard of him before," Shay said.

"Some people like their privacy," Gist said. "Better to be unknown than have paparazzi chasing you around all the time." His eyes went back to Arno. "Especially if you have a kid to worry about."

"Yea," Shay said. "The kid."

The three of them stared at each other for a minute. "I can call his father if you want," Gist volunteered. "You don't have to talk to him if you don't want to. Since Arno said… what he said."

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

But he didn't leave, not quite yet. First, he sat down next to Arno and leaned forward slightly so that they were almost on eye level. Arno was so much shorter than Shay that it was impossible to get them exactly on the same level, but they were close now. "Arno?" Shay said. "We're going to call your dad now so he can come pick you up. But first I just want to tell you that I am never going to kill your father. Never."

"Yes you will." Arno sounded absolutely certain, which annoyed Shay slightly. "I _saw_ it, so it's going to happen."

And the worst of it, Shay thought as he left Arno with Gist and hurried back upstairs, was that the kid was probably right. Someday, for some reason, he was going to kill a man he had never met. Because that was the thing about psychics- no matter how ridiculous their predictions sounded, they were usually right.

-/-

Christopher Gist had been through a lot in the first thirty five years of his life. He had faced down a wild tiger in a Chinese forest once, spent a month guarding a very strange man (Gist suspected he might have been a vampire) during a research expedition to the Bermuda Triangle, and fought a herd of zombies across the Scottish highlands (twice- that was the incident that first taught him to _always burn all zombie corpses_. Otherwise you just look like an ass when they come back when you're about to be paid).

This job was supposed to be a break. One year with nothing more exciting than alchemists and the occasional businessman from the company's executive board until he went to find something more interesting to do. But now there was a toddler psychic sitting in his chair, wearing his hat, and casually predicting the death of his father, who just so happened to be a high mage.

A _high mage_. There were like what, half a dozen of those guys in the entire world? Gist's father had once told him high mages had more magic in one pinky finger than most people had in their entire body. Gist wasn't any good at magic himself, but he was fairly sure that wasn't actually how magic worked. Still, it was a decent metaphor. High mages were in an entirely different class from… everyone else, basically. And this one had a psychic for a kid. Father and son dinners in that family must be fun.

"What's your dad like?" he asked eventually, turning in his chair to face Arno.

"I dunno," Arno said. "He's my daddy."

"Is he nice?"

"Yea." He smiled, but the expression didn't last long. "I'm gonna miss him."

"Are you sure?" Gist asked. "About Shay killing him?"

"I saw it," Arno said. His voice sounded tired and suddenly old. "This morning, I had a vision, and I saw him kill daddy. So… I had to come see."

"Why? Did you want to try and stop him?"

"That's not how it works when I see stuff. Sometimes I try to change it, but it makes stuff worse."

"So… why?"

The boy looked like he was about to answer, when the door at the base of the tower opened to admit a harried looking man in a business suit. His socks were different colors, as though he had dressed quickly.

"Arno!"

"Daddy!" Arno tumbled off his borrowed chair and ran toward the new arrival, who was presumably his father. The man was a few years younger than Gist, but his face seemed set in a permanent expression of slightly worried concern. Maybe it was a side effect of whatever important work he did for the government, or maybe that was what happened when your son could see the future.

"Arno," he said again, sweeping his son into his arms. "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing." He peeked over the edge of his father's shoulder, giving Gist a wide eyed look that meant _please don't tell him_. "I saw something and I wanted to come see."

"What have I told you?"

"Don't run away anymore," Arno recited tiredly. His father nodded, ruffling his hair.

"That's right," he agreed. Then he turned to Gist. "Thank you for calling me."

"Of course," Gist said. "It's my job."

"Still. I am sincerely thankful. If you ever need anything from me-"

"Oh, no sir," Gist protested. "I couldn't." It would be strange to ask for a favor from a dying man. The sooner Arno and his father went home, the better things would work out for all of them.

But Dorian insisted on leaving his business card for Gist before carrying his son. Gist studied it for several seconds (the card read 'Charles Dorian – High Mage' in a clear, flowing script. There was nothing else apart from a phone and email on the back. It didn't need anything else), then tucked it away. Just in case.

-/-

Shay couldn't work for the rest of the day. The fifth floor, where he had worked since being hired on at the company, was by far the least interesting. This was where all the routine work happened, the treatments and spells that prepared various metals to last longer or look better. It was all commercial, just a way to inflate the company's profits. Everyone started on the fifth floor, and if they worked hard and showed talent they were moved down to the other floors, where the more experimental and interesting work took place. Shay had no idea what happened on the other floors, but there were explosions sometimes.

He stared at the flask of pewter he was supposed to be enchanting. When he was done (if he ever started), it would be sturdier than natural and more resistant to tarnish. It was _dull_. And… he was supposed to kill someone. There was no way he could keep his mind on his work with that thought fighting for dominance in every corner of his brain. He did not want to be a murderer. Not ever, and certainly not the father of a tiny little boy that stared at him with big blue eyes and a nervous face.

"It's after six."

He looked up, suddenly realizing he had been staring at his pewter for ages without actually doing anything to it. The room had emptied out around him, until he and the intern were the only people left on the fifth floor. He hadn't even heard the others leave. "It's… after six?" he repeated.

"You didn't notice?"

"I was distracted."

The intern hesitated and moved a little closer. "So your visitor…he was _your_ visitor, wasn't he? I know you weren't expecting him, but I couldn't help noticing." He tapped the side of his face next to his right eye. "You know. Psychic. I thought he might have had a vision of you or something."

"He did," Shay said, but didn't elaborate. The intern seemed to take this as some kind of cue to keep talking.

"I've never actually seen a psychic though. I guess I never thought about them being kids. Whenever you see them in… I don't know, movies or whatever, they're always wise old men that live on mountains or something."

"Well, they have to come from somewhere," Shay said, just to say something.

"It's still weird," the intern insisted. "Like trying to picture a baby Yoda. I mean, can you imagine? You're about to have a kid, and then you look and they just have those creepy blue eyes…"

"Don't most babies have blue eyes?" Shay asked. "I think I read that somewhere."

"It's a different kind of blue," the intern said. "Pale. Like ice."

"Cold," Shay agreed. He shook his head, and started gathering his things. Clearly he wasn't going to get any work done today. The intern followed at his heels, ignoring Shay's scowl.

"Do you think he'll be back?"

"I sincerely hope not," Shay said.

"It would just be _fascinating_ , you know? How many people get to know a psychic? He-"

"Listen-" Shay stopped on the stairs, somewhere between the third and second floors. "Intern. What's your name?"

"Warren."

"Warren. _If_ , on the highly unlikely chance that boy comes back, you are not, under any circumstances, to be an ass about it. Don't bother him, don't ask a million questions. He's a little boy first and a psychic second."

"Sorry." Warren ducked his head and didn't say anything else as they kept spiraling downward. He muttered some excuse and disappeared when they got to the parking lot, which would have been great except that meant Shay didn't have anyone to distract him. Without an idiotic intern to distract him, there was nothing to do but worry about the sudden appearance of Arno and Charles Dorian in his life, and the trouble it was sure to bring.


	2. Chapter 2

Shay called home that night, for the first time in the six months since he'd left. The phone rang three, four, five times and then switched to a recorded voice telling him that the number he had called was not available and to leave a message. He declined in favor of hanging up and throwing his phone on his bed. It bounced twice and then fell back onto the floor, facedown. Shay just went ahead and made the assumption that it broke when it landed, because that was the kind of day he was having.

He wanted to talk. Clearly he was desperate, if he was willing to call home for someone to talk to. But there was no one in the city that cared enough to listen, and even if he had left home under a cloud, it was his only choice. Now, with no one picking up (and he couldn't exactly blame them), he had no one else to-

His phone rang, buzzing roughly against the slightly disgusting carpet that had come with the apartment. Shay bent down to pick it up (noticing with some relief and more than a little surprise) that it had managed not to break. "Hello?"

"Cormac."

Shit. This was _not_ the person he had in mind when he called. "Achilles," he said. He made the effort to keep his voice civil. "Nice of you to call."

"I'm calling you _back_ ," Achilles snapped. "What's wrong with you?"

"According to you, many things," Shay said. "Please don't take this as an invitation to go over them all again."

"I'm busy at the moment," Achilles answered. "The next time I have an hour or two to spare, though, I'll keep you in mind."

"I'm already looking forward to it," Shay said. He sat down at the rickety kitchen table and massaged his temple with the hand not holding his phone. Thirty seconds with the man and he was already getting a headache. "But we've had this conversation before, and I called to speak with Liam, so if you wouldn't mind-"

"He's busy now."

Of. Fucking. Course. "Then will you just tell him I called?"

"Maybe."

The phone beeped as Achilles hung up, and Shay practically jumped to his feet. Talking to the old man always made him feel dirty all over. Clearly, his only viable option was to find the closest open bar to his current location and get as numb as possible in the shortest amount of time.

This turned out to be far easier than expected. Shay stopped into the first place he saw, a dimly lit business that was half empty, and quiet apart from a middle aged couple talking quietly in a corner. Shay sat down in the seat closest to the bartender and did his best to forget everything that had happened in the past twenty four hours. He had very nearly succeeded when the bartender started snapping his fingers impatiently in front of his face. "Hey," he said.

"Go away."

"I work here," the bartender said, unperturbed. "You okay?"

"If I was okay, I wouldn't be here and you wouldn't be working."

"Speaking of which, you better be tipping." He grinned at Shay, apparently not bothered by the death glare he got in return.

"Do people usually laugh at your jokes? Because you're not all that funny."

"Just answer your phone, man," the bartender said, and Shay was surprised to realize the droning buzz that had been annoying him so much for the past few minutes was his phone ringing.

"Thanks," he said grudgingly, and the bartender nodded as he moved away to give Shay a bit of privacy.

"Hello?" he said, picking up his phone.

"About time, Shay, I've called three times already."

"Well that explains why the bartender yelled at me."

Liam huffed loudly into the phone, and even slightly buzzed (or definitely drunk, if he was being honest), Shay could imagine his expression in perfect detail. "What are you doing at a bar, Shay?"

"Planning a bank heist."

"Seriously, Shay," Liam said, and this time when he spoke there was a definite bite to the words. Liam clearly did not want to continue this conversation, but Shay wasn't in a shutting up mood.

"What do you think?" he demanded. "What do people _usually_ go to a bar for?"

"Well if you called me for a ride home, you must be drunker than I thought," Liam said, without a note of sympathy.

"You called me, remember?" Shay pointed out. "Three times."

"Because Achilles said you called earlier," Liam said. "This is me, returning your call."

"What?"

To his credit, Liam waited patiently while Shay's slowly-marinating-in-alcohol brain worked through this.

"Oh!" he said at last. "Right. I called you to tell you that-" he could actually hear his voice getting louder, and realized he might be drunker than he thought. " _Apparently_ , I'm going to kill someone."

This didn't make quite the impact on Liam that Shay had hoped for. The bartender looked up at him, pausing in the middle of cleaning a glass to raise his eyebrows in Shay's direction. "You need to go home," Liam said. "Sleep it off. You're either hallucinating, or about to make a really stupid mistake."

"Neither," Shay insisted. "I'm telling you, Liam, this little kid came to find me at work today. Psychic. And he told me I'm going to kill his dad."

"Shay-"

"I really, really need your help, Liam," Shay interrupted. "I know I didn't leave under the best circumstances, but we've been friends since we were kids, and I need you now."

"I know," Liam said. "And that's what makes it so hard to tell you to _stop calling and leave me alone._ "

"Liam…"

"Stop calling, Shay. You burned bridges on your way out that you will never be able to fix."

"Who else am I supposed to talk to about something like this? This is important! Someone's life is at risk, and I don't- I don't want to be a murderer!"

"Then go find some cops and turn yourself in," Liam said bluntly. "Maybe if I'm lucky, they'll just lock you up and throw away the key."

And then his best friend hung up on him. Shay didn't bother calling back; it was obvious there would be no answer. He put the phone down on the bar and looked over at the bartender, who was staring back at him. "Did you want to say something about all that?" Shay challenged. But the bartender, probably aware that Shay was itching for a fight, only shook his head and retreated toward the other end of the room.

-/-

"He's back again."

It had been a week since Arno's visit, and Shay had almost managed to forget it. Three disastrous nights of drinking had helped him to stop dwelling on the memories (or at least kill the relevant brain cells). This probably would have been followed by several more nights of drinking, only the bartender had either taken pity on him or gotten sick of his wallowing, and started giving him nonalcoholic drinks while distracting him with idle conversation. It helped, a little. Better than staying home and wallowing in self-pity, anyway.

He had just managed to get back to a mental state where he could work again when Warren came to talk to him again. He should have known that would be when everything went all to shit. "Who?"

"The psychic kid," Warren said. "He wants to see you again."

"Probably wants to tell me I'm going to kill his mother, too," Shay said. "Listen, do me a huge favor, will you? Go back downstairs and have Gist call his dad again. Take him home, I don't want to talk to him."

Warren nodded and Shay watched him walk away until he disappeared down the stairs. For a little while, he was almost able to get back to concentrating on his work. Today's task was a tricky spell, altering iron to make it less likely to rust, and Shay had to give it all of his attention to make the project work. He didn't hear the footsteps approaching his desk, didn't notice anything was wrong until a tiny body pressed against his side, and suddenly Arno was peeking over the side of the table to see what he was working on.

Shay swore and stepped back, staring at the kid like he'd just seen a ghost. Arno slid off the desk and giggled. "I'm not supposed to know that word," he said.

"You're not supposed to _be_ here, either," Shay said. "Why are you up here?"

"I wanted to see you again. And Mr. Gist is busy talking to, um-" he flapped his arms vaguely in some kind of childish gesticulation. "I don't know his name. That smelly intern."

"Warren?"

"He smells like pickles," Arno said, which wasn't a yes _or_ a no, but seemed to be the only answer he was willing to give. "And they weren't paying attention, so I came up here."

"Why?"

Arno beamed up at him. "Please play with me."

This was so far from what Shay had expected to hear that it essentially brought his mind to a screeching halt. "What?"

"Oh." His smile wilted a little. "Sorry. You're probably busy. But I said please."

"No- well, I mean, yes. But that's not why- Arno, last time you were here, you told me I'm going to kill your father."

"Yea," Arno agreed sadly.

"So… you should probably hate me," Shay suggested. He was vaguely aware that everyone else on the floor was staring at him, but couldn't fault them for their curiosity. This conversation was ridiculous.

"Yea," Arno agreed. "But I know you don't mean to."

So it was going to be an accident? That sounded… vaguely reassuring. Manslaughter was probably better than murder. But there were so many other questions he still wanted answers to, and this wasn't the place for it. Not with everyone staring. "Come on," he said to Arno, bending over to lift the toddler into his arms.

Arno wiggled obligingly into a more comfortable position. "Where are we going?"

"You and I need to have a conversation," Shay said.

"What?"

He smiled a little at Arno's crinkled up look of confusion. "We have to talk about stuff."

"Oh. Okay."

Gist met them at the bottom of the stairs. "I am so sorry," he apologized. "The kid got away while I was distracted."

"It's fine," Shay said. "I'm taking Arno to that hamburger place down the street until his dad gets here."

"If you're sure," Gist said, eyeing him in surprise. "I'll text you when he shows up."

"We're going to get hamburgers?" Arno asked. "Really?"

"Yep."

Arno flopped back in Shay's arms until he could reach the floor and walk on his own, although he kept one hand on Shay's. "We never go out to eat anymore," he said. "Sometimes it's okay, but sometimes people recognize daddy and they spend all day _bothering_ him. So we don't go out."

"Well, today you do," Shay said, and he let Arno do all the talking until they got to the restaurant. It was a cheap place, fast food at its best, and Shay usually avoided it because of the crowds of children and harried parents it attracted. But it was early afternoon, too late for lunch and too early for the after school crowds, and he happened to have a small child with him, which made the place perfect.

Arno looked at the whole place as if he were trying to memorize every detail (his gaze lingered on the plastic playground in the back), and waited patiently while Shay ordered for both of them and brought the food to the table.

"It changes color?" Arno asked when he opened his kid's meal. "How does it do that?"

Shay glanced down at the burger, which was orange like a pumpkin at the moment but halfway through changing to firetruck red. "It's just a charm," he said. "Harmless, don't worry."

"But…" Shay winced as Arno started to dismantle the burger, scattering tomatoes over the table. "It's magic?"

Shay nodded, surprised at Arno's reaction. He had expected the son of a high mage to take cheap charms like this for granted, especially given that he was a psychic himself. But he looked like any other preschooler seeing magic for the first time, all eager curiosity and wary caution. "You're not used to seeing spells, are you?"

"No. Daddy says it's better to wait until I'm bigger."

"Well then let's not tell him about this," Shay said hastily, because the last thing he wanted right now was Arno's father out for his blood. "It'll be our secret, alright?"

"Yep!" Arno reassembled the mess on the table into something vaguely resembling a hamburger, and dug in. "So do you have crayons?"

"No," Shay said, brushing the question aside because they didn't have time for Arno to start coloring things right now. He didn't know how long it would take Arno's father to arrive, and he needed some answers before that happened. "Listen, Arno, I need to know everything you've seen about me and your dad."

Arno gave him a look. "I _know_ ," he said, with exaggerated patience. "That's why I need the crayons."

"You knew I was going to- psychic. Right. Wait here." He retrieved a box of crayons from a bucket near the cash register, along with a paper kid's menu. The front was brightly colored and filled with little puzzles, but the back was plain white. "Have at it kid," he said, and Arno set to drawing with enthusiastic gusto.

"Okay," he said at last, putting aside his last crayon and considering his masterpiece. "This is you-" he pointed to a blue stick figure with a frown. "And this is daddy." Another blue person, smiling. "That's what I see most of the time. But sometimes I see other stuff." He pointed at the picture of his dad. "I see this a lot," he explained. "Like, um… a shadow that follows him around. Except whenever I see shadows like that, they come true later." There were two red stick figures behind the blue one. It was hard to tell exactly what they were doing, given Arno's lack of artistic ability, but the red x's over one of their eyes meant it wasn't that hard to jump to conclusions.

"You see me killing your dad every time you look at him?"

Arno shook his head. "Not every time," he said. "Just sometimes. But last week, we were going to play at the park and I saw you! So when daddy wasn't paying attention, I went back to where I saw you before, and that was when we met."

"But why did you want to see me at all?"

Arno pointed to the final two stick figures on his paper, this time colored green. "I saw you and me shadows the first time I saw you, so I knew we had to be friends."

"What's going on in the picture?" he asked, pointing at the tangled mess of green lines that was apparently what Arno saw when looking at him. "What are we doing?"

"Stand up," Arno said authoritatively. He got up himself and put his hands on his hips. It was… slightly adorable, and Shay couldn't help smiling a little as he did as he was told. "Okay," Arno said. "I saw us in the future, so I'm gonna be taller. Um…" he looked around, then carefully climbed up on the chair he'd been sitting on. Shay reached out instinctively to steady him, and Arno suddenly reached forward and wrapped his arms around Shay's stomach.

He froze. "This?" he demanded. " _This_ is what you see?"

"Yea," Arno said. "Only, you're hugging me, too." He smiled up at Shay, and there was no guile in the expression, nothing but the innocent joy of a kid too young and naïve to know how much harder life was going to get when he grew up. "So that's how come I know you're going to kill my daddy on accident. Because you're nice and you like me. Only a mean person would do it on purpose."

He stared at Arno. It absolutely blew his mind that the only things the boy knew about him was that he was going to be a murderer, and that at some point in the future, for some reason, they were going to hug. And somehow, those two pieces of information were enough to make the boy decide to forgive and even _like_ him.

"An accident?"

"Probably."

God, he hoped that were true. He didn't like the idea of killing Arno's father on accident, and it certainly wouldn't make things any better for his future victim, but Shay preferred manslaughter to murder. And… maybe Arno was right. Hugging was not a thing people normally did with people that had killed their father on purpose. Maybe on accident, but not on purpose. Still, there were better places for Arno to be and better people for him to spend time with than Shay.

He sat the boy back down on his chair, and sat down opposite him. "Arno," he said. "Honestly, how much have you told your dad about all this?"

"Nothing," Arno said. "It would make him sad."

"Did you tell him you were coming here?"

"No. I left when he was at work. The nanny doesn't notice where I go."

"What about your mom?"

"She left when I was a baby."

"Brothers or sisters?"

"No."

"Okay." Well that sounded like a not fun place to grow up, and Shay considered himself an expert on horrible childhoods. "Arno, you really need to stay with your nanny." Even though she was apparently so bad at her job that she didn't notice her single charge disappearing for hours at a time.

Arno looked at him with an expression on his face that said he knew he was about to win an argument. "She smokes in the house."

He sighed. "I'm calling your father."

"What?" The smile slid off Arno's face like snow melting in spring. "No! Don't tell him!"

He fought with Shay all the way back, and sulked in Gist's chair while they waited for his father to come (again) and collect him. "What did you say to him?"

"I told him he had to tell his father what he told me," Shay said.

"That seems reasonable."

"Not when you're Arno's age, apparently."

The boy blew a raspberry in their general direction and slouched down farther in his stolen chair.

It took less time for Charles Dorian to arrive than it had last time, and the expression on his face was one of resignation rather than the worry Shay had expected. "I'm so sorry," he said, directing his comment to the two adults even as he bent down to fuss over his son. "Sometimes he gets these ideas into his head- I don't know why he keeps coming back here."

"We do," Shay said.

"No!" Arno shouted. "Don't tell, don't tell!"

"He told me that he's been having visions of me killing you," Shay said bluntly.

"Shay!" Arno protested. Somehow, he managed to drag it out into three syllables. "I said don't tell!"

"Thank you," Charles said, after taking an admirably short amount of time to process that. "I will need some time to think about this."

And that was all he said before picking Arno up and walking out the door with him. Now thoroughly confused, Shay turned to Gist. "So if he needs time to think, does that mean that at some point he's going to stop thinking and want to talk again? Because I kind of want everything to go back to normal."

Gist laughed right in his face and clapped him on the shoulder. "After all this, I think you can kiss normal goodbye."


	3. Chapter 3

Shay did not see Arno for another month after that. He kept half expecting the boy to show up in the middle of work, but nothing happened. He did not get any visits from Arno, he did not make any calls to anyone back home, he did not go out for any more (all night) drinking binges. Life began to settle into its old, familiar pattern, and Shay allowed himself to drop his guard.

Which was when Charles Dorian dropped into Shay's new favorite bar and sat in the always empty stool next to him. Shay glanced over to see who had interrupted his evening alone with his alcohol, did a double take that almost knocked him onto the floor, and then tried to salvage some shred of dignity. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "Sir?"

"Please don't call me sir," Charles said. He didn't exactly smile, but gave Shay a tired look when he tried that made Shay almost pity him. "I get enough of that from my coworkers."

"Sorry." He took a deep breath while he tried to work out how he felt about someone as powerful as this man actually resenting the respect others gave him. "Before you say anything else, I just really want you to know that I didn't encourage Arno at all. He stopped by to see me, and I didn't ask him to come back. I barely even get what's going on, I don't-"

"I completely understand," Charles said, mercifully interrupting before Shay could babble anything else. "Arno is a… difficult child to deal with."

"No, not at all-"

"He is," Charles said firmly. "He's my son, I should know better than anyone how difficult he can be." He interrupted his own story to have a brief conversation from the (obviously eavesdropping but trying to look like he wasn't) bartender, which ended with him ordering a drink while Shay's brain tried to play catch up with the conversation. He had no idea what he was supposed to say in response to this, but luckily Charles started right back up where he'd left off.

"When he was born, I didn't know what to do. There's no way to foresee when a psychic will be born, ironically enough, and the whole thing was a complete surprise. It scared his mother away, you know. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life looking into those eyes and wondering how much he knew, and I think she was afraid that he would see things about her like what he saw about me."

"So she left, leaving you to bring him up alone?"

"Quite frankly, I might have left if she hadn't gone first," Charles said bluntly. "But it seemed unfair to leave him without either of his parents. I would of course appreciate it if you never mentioned that particular detail to him."

"I don't expect that I'll ever see him again, so that shouldn't be a problem."

"Ah yes," Charles said. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Seeing him again?"

"Yes. I would be very grateful to you if you could make yourself available to Arno. Not all the time, but just… once in a while."

"I'm sorry," Shay said, almost laughing. "But _why_? He has visions that always come true, and one of those visions was of me killing you. You should be ordering me into a different state, not asking me to watch your child."

"Let me explain," Charles said.

"Please. I would love to hear the reasoning behind this particular decision."

"Like I said, I originally planned to leave when Arno was born. When his mother left I changed my mind, but I still had no idea what to do with a psychic child. I did some research just after he was born, and I started to put things together. It wasn't so hard when he was a child, of course. I assume he was still seeing things, but infants aren't intelligent enough to know what they're seeing so at least it was easier on the rest of us.

"Things didn't get strange until he started learning to talk. That was when he started telling me what he saw in his visions. Most of the time, apparently- he's never mentioned my own death. " He frowned for a moment, but didn't allow himself to be distracted for long. "Anyway, by now, I think I know more about how to interpret his visions than he does. He sees things, but he doesn't always understand…"

Charles trailed off, and Shay realized it was on him to continue the conversation. "It seems to me there shouldn't be that much room for interpretation in murder."

"The visions don't come with context," Charles pointed out. "I believe that whatever reason you will have to kill me, it will be justified."

"Why?"

"Because of the other vision Arno had about you."

Shay laughed aloud. "What, the _hug_?"

But Charles didn't laugh, just looked at Shay with absolute seriousness. "Yes."

"And a hug overrules a murder?"

Charles smiled softly. "Trust me," he said. "I know my son. And I know his abilities. I don't think he's quite worked it out for himself yet, but luckily he's not the first person to go through this. Psychic visions aren't always _visions,_ in the sense that they're not always something you an see _._ They can come as sounds, smells, anything. That includes feelings, and as soon as he saw you, he felt he could trust you. Enough to run away from home twice to go see you." He smiled, but now there was a hint of bitterness around the edges of his eyes. Shay winced at that, because after all how much would it hen to hurt to see your own child go running to someone else. "He talks about you all the time, you should know that. He asks about you every day, if he can go see you, what you're doing, what you would think about this or that… Shay, whatever you're going to be in the future, you're obviously going to be very important to him."

"I don't want to be."

Charles scowled. "Listen, I'm trying to be decent about the fact that my only son is more interested in in you than me. I am apparently not going to be here for him forever, and I'm trying to make sure he's okay after I'm gone. I need to know that there's someone he can trust, and right now it looks like that someone is probably going to be you."

He should have argued. Right then, he should have said something but it was hard to argue with a man who looked as defeated as Charles did right then. Still- "There are some things you should probably know about me before this conversation goes any farther," he said. "Before I came to this city I-"

"I know," Charles said. "I did do my research before I came here tonight. It's not a problem."

"Not a problem?" Shay demanded. "It got me sent away from home. Everyone I know hates me. I don't even want to be around myself, I wouldn't ever trust myself with a child!"

"Arno's not just any child," Charles said. "He's psychic."

"I noticed. But-"

"Think about it," Charles said." You're a ticking time bomb. A psychic is the only kind of person you could possibly trust to be around you. Who else would be able to get out of the way in time?"

"I question your parenting skills," Shay said dully.

Charles downed the last of his drink, dug a bill out of his pocket, and left it next to the empty glass. "I'll see you soon," he promised, and walked out of the bar. Shay sat and gaped at the empty space left behind, wondering where Charles had somehow heard him agree to the (horrible) idea of seeing Arno more. Eventually the bartender came back toward him to refill his drink. "This one's on the house," he said. "Looks like you need it."

-/-

There was an envelope on Liam's desk when he came in Friday morning, stuffed thick with pictures he wasn't looking forward to seeing. There was no return address on the plain brown material, but he knew who it was from anyway.

He put off opening the envelope for nearly an hour. First he logged into his computers, checked his email, and responded to a few that seemed particularly urgent. After that, there was facebook to distract him, and Hope stopping by for a quick chat about whatever was annoying her today. The woman was never in a good mood, not since the disaster that had preceded Shay's exile seven months ago. She had been the one running the research, and Liam still secretly believed she blamed herself for what had happened, no matter how loudly she objected.

She was about to leave when she happened to catch sight of the envelope. It was still on Liam's desk, just shifted over a few feet to keep it out of the way while he stubbornly ignored it. "What is this?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"Liam." She was almost smiling, which on any other woman would have been a good sign. With Hope, it just meant there was reason to worry. "It's obviously not nothing, or you wouldn't be working so hard to ignore it."

He sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "This month's surveillance report on Shay," he admitted. "It just came in this morning."

"Oh!" Her thin fingers were already dancing across the lip of the envelope to peel it open. "Do you mind if I look at them before you send them along to Achilles?"

"Feel free," he said, and watched her expression as she flipped through the thick pile of pictures.

"These are nice," she said when she was halfway through. "Did we get a new guy to do them?"

"Yea. The last one got tired of following him around, but this one seems like he knows what he's doing."

"Hmm." And then her eyebrows went up abruptly. "Oh, _wow_. Liam, come over here and look at this."

He wasn't expecting to see anything particularly amazing, but Hope was still looking at the picture with uncharacteristically wide eyes. When he crossed the table to look at the picture she'd moved to the top, he understood why. "Where did he find a high mage?"

The picture the two of them were looking at was a high definition photograph of Shay at a bar, sitting next to a man that Liam had only ever seen from a distance. "That's Dorian, isn't it?" he asked. "The guy with the…" he made a vague gesture as if he were doing something in a lab. "The lead into gold guy?"

"Yea," Hope agreed. "He used to be a big deal, but he just dropped off the face of the planet about five years ago. I wonder what he wants with Shay now."

"We'll have to start keeping a closer eye on him," Liam said. He made a face and twisted away from Hope and her handful of pictures. "I hate this, you know? The guy used to be my best friend, I never thought we'd have to start spying on him."

Hope gave him a flat look. "He's not your friend anymore," she said. "One of these days, something's going to happen to push him over the edge, and we all know what's going to happen then. We need to know where he is and what he's doing at all times, so that we can stop him if-" her eyes narrowed. " _When_ he explodes. We're already taking a big enough risk just letting him live."

"We don't kill people, Hope," Liam said. "No matter who they are."

"Or _what_ they are, apparently," Hope said darkly. She dropped the pictures onto Liam's desk, and walked out without another word.

But Liam wasn't willing to let things drop. "Hope!" he shouted, running after her. "Wait!"

She was already halfway down the hall, mingling among a crowd of students. Liam hesitated, reluctant to speak in front of an audience. Especially in front of students. If they heard any of this, it would be all over the school before noon.

"Get to class," Hope snapped at them, and the hall cleared immediately in response to the look on her face. When they were alone, Liam stepped up close to Hope and crossed his arms. "Don't tell anyone about the pictures," he said. "Especially the ones with Dorian."

"Achilles has to know," Hope said, raising an eyebrow.

"And I'll tell him, I swear. Just… not right away. Give me a day or two to figure out how to spin it." He offered a smile that was all false bravado. "He gets upset enough when he hears Shay's name under normal circumstances. I just want to catch him in a good mood before I tell him his least favorite exile is rubbing shoulders with one of the most powerful mages of our generation."

She considered his words for a second, then gave a snort of laughter. "Yea," she admitted. "I don't envy you that conversation. But I will tell Achilles, whether I want to or not, if you're just delaying to protect Shay."

"I'm not," he assured her. "Not him. Not anymore."

-/-

Arno arrived at Shay's apartment the next Saturday, wearing a bright yellow raincoat and a backpack with ninja turtles. It was almost bigger than he was, and his coat was dripping into a messy puddle on the hallway floor. Shay had not been expecting a visitor, and he had yet to leave his apartment (or dress properly), so for a long minute he just stood with his hand on the doorknob and blinked at the soaking wet toddler in front of him. He had not anticipated rain, and spared a moment to think of his innocent floors that were about to be dripped all over.

"Hi," Arno said at last. "Can I come inside?"

"Wait there a second," Shay said. He retreated back into the safety of his apartment and came back a moment or two later with a heap of old newspaper under one arm. When the carpet had been adequately covered by a path of newspapers leading to the (tiled) kitchen, he took Arno's hand and led him farther inside.

Somehow, he had not expected this. Even after being cornered by Charles earlier, he hadn't actually thought there would be any more surprise visits. If he had to start seeing the kid more, which _apparently_ he did, he'd sort of expected it would be more organized. Maybe he could get a heads up, once in a while.

"Your house is small," the boy said. "And ugly."

Shay decided to ignore this, because there didn't seem to be any malice at all in his tone. If anything, Arno sounded almost cheerful. "It's an apartment," he said instead. "Not a house."

"Why don't you make it look prettier?" Arno asked. He sat down on a stool and started pulling off his rain boots. They were bright yellow and went all the way up to his knees.

"I haven't been here very long," Shay said. He realized he was pressed up against the wall of his own kitchen, avoiding Arno as if he were a dangerous animal instead of a very small child. He forced himself to relax slightly, reminding himself that children, while frequently destructive, were not technically feral beasts. "There are more important things to worry about."

"What's more important today?"

"Um…" He had been planning on spending his day off mostly in bed, either sleeping or watching netflix. Now that he had an unexpected babysitting gig, that probably wasn't going to happen.

"Great! Then let's fix it today," Arno said. He started pulling markers out of his backpack. "We can make art."

"What are you planning to draw on?" Shay asked, abruptly concerned for both his walls and his security deposit.

"Paper," Arno said, giving him a slightly hurt look. "I know not to draw on walls."

Which was how they came to spend the next four hours coloring. Shay wasn't sure he had colored even when he was Arno's age, but it kept the boy happy while he narrated a constant story about what his mostly shapeless blobs were supposed to be doing. It was a weird feeling, the way Arno had just dropped back into Shay's life as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if he had as much right to be here in the apartment as Shay.

Maybe it was a sign of his age, or maybe it was just Arno's personality, but either way the boy had come in and immediately made himself at home. His markers were spread out all over the kitchen table, his boots dripping sadly onto the pile of newspapers, a forgotten cheese sandwich resting at his elbow. Shay had made the sandwich with the vague idea that kids liked eating, but Arno had taken a bite and mostly ignored it.

He kept drawing Shay back into his art, which was the hardest part. Shay thought he could have dealt with babysitting duty if that just meant sitting there and watching Arno. But every time he pulled back, retreating a little to give himself some space, there was Arno's hand on his arm or his face upturned in pleading supplication, always always begging him to come back. Shay didn't ask why Arno wanted him there so much, wasn't sure if he'd like the answer he got. So he just stayed quiet and let Arno have what he wanted until hours passed and Shay gently insisted he should start heading home.

"You're gonna hang these up, right?" Arno asked, pointing to the pile of finished pictures in the middle of the table.

"Well-" They were clearly important to Arno, Shay had just watched him labor over them for most of the morning. But they were still pretty disastrous from an artistic point of view, and Shay didn't yet care enough for this random intruder into his life for that affection to overwhelm the lack of aesthetic value.

"But your walls need to be pretty."

"I think my walls are-" Damn that kid's puppy dog eyes. "Okay, fine. One or two."

"Yay!" He held up a red marker. "Help me write my name!"

So Shay sat there, with his hand wrapped gently around Arnos much smaller fingers, carefully spelling out the necessary letters. "Then you go," he said when they finally finished. It had taken way longer than it should have, thanks to Arno's stubborn insistence on writing his name as large as possible, smack in the middle of the paper where it obscured most of what he'd drawn earlier.

Shay had no intention of actually hanging the picture in his apartment (which, as Arno had pointed out, wasn't exactly attractive, but was still slightly above the artistic talents of a toddler). Unfortunately, Arno clearly wasn't going to leave until he saw his pictures taped up right next to the door.

"Okay," he said. "Okay! Keep it there until I come back, okay? You have to!"

"Sure."

Arno narrowed his eyes and studied Shay, who suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being looked at _too_ closely. But then Arno nodded, a little less enthusiastic suddenly than it had been before. "I have to go home now," he said.

"Isn't someone coming to pick you up?" Shay asked. He hadn't seen any sign of a chaperone when Arno arrived at his doorstep, but he'd assumed that someone had at least walked him to the building.

"No. I know how to get home."

Except that wasn't the point- Shay lived in a relatively safe neighborhood, one where Arno was unlikely to find himself in trouble, and most likely his home was in a safe enough place as well. But even if Arno knew the way, even if (maybe) he could foresee and navigate around any dangers, that still seemed grossly unsafe to Shay. He thought briefly of Charles Dorian, and wondered what kind of a father would allow this. Of course, there was always the chance Arno had slipped out while alone with his apparently useless nanny.

"Does your father know you're here?"

"No. He went to…." He screwed up his face in concentration. "Um… I can't remember where he is this time. He goes away a lot."

Shay sighed. "Come on," he said. "You're not allowed to go home alone, I'm coming with you."

"Really?" Arno hugged his legs for all of half a second before running for his things, chattering a mile a minute in a way that was fast becoming familiar. The kid seemed to have two moods- abusing the fact that he was a toddler and therefore both big eyed and utterly in need of protection, and hyperactively bouncing off the walls while running his mouth as fast as it could go. Shay wondered idly which one was going to get Arno in trouble first, then gave it up as an exercise in futility and went looking for his shoes.

It wasn't raining anymore by the time they got outside, but the streets were still wet and spotted with puddles. Shay asked Arno for his address as soon as they were outside, but the kid only smiled at him (showing all of his teeth in the process) and pointed vaguely down the street. So they walked, for a good fifteen minutes that would have been less if Arno had longer legs or less inclination to jump in every single puddle.

"That's it," Arno said at last. He tugged on the back of Shay's shirt to make him stop walking, and pointed at the house they were just about to bypass. It was smaller than Shay had expected, although nice enough. The front yard was impeccably neat, but Shay could see a swingset in the large backyard along with a scattering of toys.

Arno didn't make any move toward the front door, not even when Shay tried to give him a little push. "You have to go home, Arno," he said with as much patience as possible. It hadn't been quite as bad as he expected to spend the past several hours playing babysitter, but he had things to do and errands to run, and was it too much to ask that Arno just go back to his own home, really?

"Shay…"

The front door of the house opened, and a short blonde woman, younger than Shay by several years, came rushing out. "That's your nanny?" Shay asked, and Arno nodded glumly. He didn't protest as the woman grabbed him around the elbow and guided him back to the house, scolding him all the way. Shay stayed where he was, rooted to the spot almost against his own will. Arno looked back at him, just for a second, and raised one sad hand to wave.

Shay waved back, just a second too late as the door closed with a final sounding thump.


	4. Chapter 4

Shay made plans to take Arno out the second time the boy came to visit. He waited long enough to let Arno admire the picture he'd made last time, still hanging where it had been left the week before. Arno was ecstatic to see that it was there, a smile bursting across his face with the abruptness of an exploding firecracker, and all the same brightness. "You remembered me!" he said, which seemed like an odd choice of words to Shay. "You're hard to forget," he said. He wasn't sure if he meant it as a compliment, but that was how Arno apparently took it.

"Can we draw again today?" he asked, starting to take off his shoes. It wasn't raining today, so the rain boots had not made a reappearance. Instead, he was wearing a pair of tiny gym shoes that lit up with flashing lights whenever he took a step.

"I was thinking about something else, actually," Shay said, putting out a hand to stop him. There were things he wanted to talk to Arno about, and so he'd been planning the best way to bring the subject up basically since Arno left last time. In the end he'd decided to take the kid out to a park, maybe let him play with some other kids, then distract him with food and start asking questions he didn't necessarily want to know the answers to. "We're going out."

Arno looked up at him, surprised for half a second before the smile came back. "Yea! Yea, I wanna go to the park!" He threw his arms around Shay, who stumbled slightly under the double surprise of being hugged and remembering that, oh yea, psychic, apparently there wasn't a point in trying to surprise him. This hug was different from the demonstration one in the burger place, though. That had been more clinical, a shadow of whatever it was that Arno was _going_ to feel for Shay in the future. This was tight like a vice around his legs, a child's attempt to translate the depths of his feelings into something physical.

"Whoa, Arno," Shay put a hand on the wall to keep himself from falling over. "What's wrong?"

"You thought about me!" Arno said. "You wanted me to come back, you _like_ me!"

"Sure," Shay said, because maybe the kid was actually starting to grow on him, or maybe he was just getting soft, or maybe… maybe there was something else going on he didn't fully understand himself. "Yea, why not?" And he hadn't been planning to start asking his questions this early, but it was such a natural segue he didn't think he could pass up the chance while he had it.

"Arno." He carefully loosened the boy's arms and sat down cross legged in front of him. Arno sat down too, cocking his head curiously at whatever this new development was going to be. "Can you tell me a little bit about your dad?"

"Like what?"

Like how often does he go away and leave you with a nanny that doesn't notice you leaving for hours at a time. Like does he even pay attention to you while he's home. Like why are you so excited just to know someone is thinking about you, and why do you _expect_ people to forget you when you're not here. What kind of a parent admits they would have left their child if they had a chance, or foists the responsibilities of raising said child onto the first random stranger-slash-would-be-murderer they think will take him.

He didn't say any of that though. "I don't know," he said instead. "Anything you want to tell me."

"Um… he goes away a lot to work."

Shay held up seven fingers. "This is how many days it's been since you were here. How many of those days was your dad home?"

Arno thought about that, then reached forward and pushed down five of Shay's fingers. "He came home on the weekend and then went away again."

"What did you do while he was home?"

Arno shrugged. "I don't know. We went to the grocery store, and I got cereal with marshmallows in it and also doritos." He looked proud of this achievement. "I put doritos in my pocket and now the inside is all orange."

"Good, um… good job?" Shay shook his head and refocused. "What did you do after the grocery store?"

He shrugged. "Daddy worked in his office and I watched TV."

"Do you have friends apart from your dad, Arno? People that play with you, or… or talk to you, even?"

"Sometimes the nanny, but she usually just plays with her phone." His smile crept back onto his face, hovering uncertainly in the face of what must have seemed like an odd conversation from his point of view. "But you colored with me, remember?"

"Yea, Arno." This time, he was the one that leaned forward and hugged Arno first. "Don't worry, I remember you." Arno gasped in surprise and flung his eager arms around Shay's neck.

"Shay?" Arno's breath was a little puff of air against Shay's ear.

"Yea?"

"I'm lonely." He shivered in Shay's arms, and that was it. That was the last second that Shay tried to fight the way Arno was slowly crawling his way into his life. A year ago, Shay had been surrounded by people he liked and trusted, doing work he enjoyed and believed in. One mistake and a few months later, he was alone in a city that couldn't care less if he were alive or dead, and his only friend was the guy that ran the security check point at his office. Because damn it all, _he_ was lonely too.

"Daddy told me not to talk to people," Arno said. "He said having visions will scare people. Are you gonna get scared?"

Shay looked at him. "You can see the future," he said. "Can't you tell?"

Arno huffed in annoyance. If he'd been a few years older, Shay assumed he would have rolled his eyes. "That's not how it works," he said. "I see stuff but I can't pick what I see. It just happens. I don't know what you're going to do."

"I'm not going to get scared. I'm not going to leave you."

He got up, moving carefully so that Arno could let go on his own time. It took him a little longer than Shay had expected to untangle himself, but eventually he managed it. "So here's what's going to happen," Shay said. "We're going to go to the playground, and you're going to play. With other kids if you want. Then we will get food, and you can hang out here as long as you want."

"Really?"

"Yea. And if you get lonely again, you can come back whenever you need to." He thought briefly about the distance between his apartment and Arno's house. "But maybe try to get your nanny to walk you here next time. Or I'll show you how to call me, and I'll come get you myself."

Arno nodded and took Shay's hand, pressing himself happily up against Shay's side. "Okay."

-/-

When Arno finally went back home, Shay was left with the uncomfortable feeling of having just committed to something life changing without his life actually changing in any way whatsoever. Arno was unavoidably linked to him now, bound to him with the promise Shay had made.

He went out for groceries, more because he wanted something to do than because he actually needed food. Or maybe he did need food. He tried to remember how much he had in his fridge and couldn't. He felt all upside down, like he was seeing everything around him in a new way.

He had a kid now? Maybe? Sort of? What exactly was Arno supposed to be to him? And more importantly, what was he supposed to do about the boy? He'd told Arno he could come over as often as he wanted, but how often would that be? Was his life going to change now? How much was going to be different? Did he have to start expecting Arno to come over all the time? Did he (shay looked around the grocery store with a sudden sense of panic) have to start buying food for him? What did kids even eat?

And what was he supposed to do about Charles? The absentee father that seemed to have no idea what to do with his own son. It had to be hard, going from a professional (and highly successful) mage to a suddenly single man. Especially when his child was a psychic as well. But what he was doing… the way he treated Arno… shay was no expert, but to him it seemed borderline abusive. It couldn't be okay to treat a kid like this, just ignore them and cut them off from their peers.

"Watch where you're going!"

Shay only realized he had been standing in front of the cart corral for far too long when someone slammed into his shoulder, knocking him over and onto the ground. Shay scrambled back to his feet, suddenly and abruptly angry. He wanted Charles to be there so he could take out his anger on the man it was actually directed at, but this asshole, whoever he was, would have to do.

He surged to his feet, blood pounding in his errs and his whole body throbbing from its contact with the ground. "Shut up," he snarled, and the asshole laughed, rarely for the fight that Shay so badly wanted to give him. He brought his elbow back, ready to the first punch, but suddenly then was a hand on his arm and another on his shoulder, pulling him back and away from the asshole.

"Stop," a voice hissed in his ear, and Shay froze with the unexpected familiarity of it. "Don't get angry." The asshole waited a second, maybe just to see if shay was going to change his mind, then smirked and walked off. Shay couldn't help noticing that he hadn't even taken the damn cart.

He might have gone after the asshole just for that, the growing anger in his stomach was quickly overruling his brain, but there was still that hand on his arm, firm as an iron vice, pulling him back from whatever stupid mistake he was trying to make. With an effort, Shay forced himself to calm down enough to turn and deal with this.

He almost didn't recognize the man holding him, accustomed as he was to seeing the guy behind a dimly lit bar counter, but the voice was the same, and eventually shay able to convince himself this really was the bartender (who had been there when he nearly melted down over Arnos first appearance, who had been blatantly eavesdropping when Charles came by to suggest shay spend time with Arno, who had seen Shay at his worst way too many times recently). Awkward.

"You cool now?" the bartender asked, and Shay nodded. "Yea," he said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-I mean, I'm not usually like this."

"He was asking for it." The bartender grinned and relaxed his grip on Shan enough to let him pull away. "Unfortunately, he was also twice your size and now everyone is staring at both of us."

Shay winced at the truth of this, and pointed toward the store. "Do you mind if we go in. then?" he asked. "I suddenly want to get out of this crowd very badly."

"I'm not really in the habit of shopping with random guys," the bartender said. He was obviously reluctant and shay couldn't blame him-unfortunately he really didn't want to risk running into the asshole again inside, when he wouldn't have anyone else around to pull him back. "Especially people I… met… at work. It's kind of awkward."

"My name's Shay," Shay said quickly, holding out his hand. "Yours?"

"I-Desmond-but why…?"

Shay shook his hand and pasted on a hopeful grin. "Now we're friends. Acquaintances? Anyway, I'm not josh some random guy, so plan come in with me and stop me from beating that guy's face in if I see him again."

For a second, he really thought Desmond was going to say no. Then the man laughed and made a face. "Sure," he said. "Why not?"

They said absolutely nothing to one another as they walked inside and started with the aisles closest to the door. Shay thought they might have continued in awkward silence for the entire trip if Desmond hadn't abruptly shoved an index card toward his face. "Hey, can you look at this for a second and tell me if that word looks more like cranberries or cantaloupes?"

Shay squinted at the list. The entire thing was illegible, apart from the words 'fruit loops' about halfway down. He made an educated guess. "Well considering it's not Thanksgiving, I assume there would be no reason for you to buy cranberries."

"Oh!" He grinned and pocketed the list to look at later. "Right, makes sense. Also, does anyone actually like cranberries?"

"Plenty of people," Shay said. "Why would you put cranberries on your list if you don't even like them?"

"Sometimes I just put random fruits and vegetables on my list in case my brother pops in to complain," Desmond admitted. "But yea, most of what I eat is covered in sugar or deep fried."

Shay laughed. "The only things I know how to make are toast and sandwiches."

"Okay," Desmond said. "I know the only reason I'm still here is because you don't want to beat some guy up, but I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

-/-

Altair had lived and worked at the Davenport Academy for Magical Advancement (also known simply as the Homestead to most of the people there) since his twenty first birthday. The ten years before that had been spent in the same place as a student. As a child, he had spent hours (ditching class) exploring every hidden nook and cranny, and even as an adult he tended to avoid the most well worn paths and crowded places.

Of course, there was considerably less time for wandering off now than there had been when he was young. The school attracted two kinds of students: those with natural magical talent far above the average, and those that were desperate to learn. Altair fell into the first category- he had never particularly wanted to practice magic for a living, but it was the only thing he knew. After graduation, he had simply followed most of his classmates out of the classrooms and into the labs. It was a good enough life, apart from the requirement that he also teach during the first seven years of his research contract. He wasn't so great at that part.

"Are you hiding from your class again?"

Altair sighed at the sound of Liam's voice and reluctantly opened his eyes. "I'm not… _hiding_ from them," he said, choosing his words carefully. "I'm just choosing not to physically be in the classroom with them."

"How is that different from hiding?" Liam sat down on the bench next to Altair, who edged along the length of it to keep a healthy distance between the two of them. At this time of the day, the small garden on the north side of the school was very nearly guaranteed to be deserted, which was exactly why Altair had chosen to go there.

"Hiding implies fear," Altair said. "There's no reason to be afraid of a handful of six year olds."

"Ah." Liam grinned at him and nodded like this explained everything. "First graders."

"Demons," Altair corrected. "They are not children, they are demons."

"Why do you stay here?" Liam asked. "There are a dozen other places that would let you do your research without teaching."

"I don't mind the older ones too much," Altair admitted grudgingly. "It's just the little ones that drive me up the wall. And this is a good place, that does good work. I would rather stay here and know my work is doing something worthwhile than sell out to some corporate lab somewhere."

"Achilles isn't going to let you stay if you don't get your classes covered," Liam said. "You know that, right?"

"He'll turn a blind eye," Altair said dismissively. "He always does."

"That was before what happened when Shay left last year," Liam said. "Everything's being more tightly controlled now, and he's not going to let a group of six year olds wander into something that can hurt them. Again."

Altair looked sideways at Liam. Clearly he was leading up to something, but Altair had no idea what that something was. "So… you're saying I should get back to class?" he said, hazarding a guess.

"No, actually. I was about to offer to take your first years for the rest of the semester. So you won't have to deal with them."

Altair had two hours of first graders each week, and had been unsuccessfully trying to foist this responsibility onto literally anyone else since he started teaching four years ago. There was no way Liam had just decided to take them out of the kindness of his heart. "In exchange for..?"

"I might need you to get a message to Desmond at some point in the future," Liam said. "Without Achilles knowing."

"No problem," Altair said. "Simple. So simple there must be a catch, so what is it?"

"I don't know yet," Liam said. "There's just some stuff going on that is starting to get… I don't know. Weird. I'm not sure which direction all this is going in, but-"

"What's your point, Liam?"

He sighed and seemed to deflate a little, leaning back against the bench. "It's about Shay."

"What?" Altair shook his head and narrowed his eyes, glaring at Liam. "No! You are _not_ dragging Desmond into whatever's happening with Shay."

Liam winced and took a deep breath before answering. "Too late. Achilles asked me to put Shay under surveillance, and Desmond just so happens to work about two blocks away from Shay's apartment. There's five years between the two of them, they never interacted when they were here and Desmond left before graduating. All I did was ask Desmond to take pictures of Shay so we would know where he was and… you know. How bad things are."

Altair got up, and pushed Liam back down onto the bench when the other man started to follow him. "Don't talk to me," he warned. His blood was boiling, and had Liam argued, Altair thought he might have hit the older man. He'd messed with Desmond when all Desmond wanted was to get out and forget about the Academy, and here was Liam, dragging him back in. "Don't you dare talk to me right now. Go deal with the first years, and I'll find you when I don't want to hit you."

"Come on, Altair!" Liam protested. "Desmond can look after himself."

"Not as well as he thinks he can," Altair said. "And that's my _brother_ you're taking advantage of."

"I'm not taking advantage!" Liam got to his feet, ignoring Altair as he literally growled in response. "And technically he's not your brother."

"Don't. Talk. To me." Altair glared at him for a second longer than was strictly necessary, because he knew from experience that tended to make people uncomfortable. Only when Liam was shifting awkwardly on the bench did Altair turn and leave as quickly as possible. An angry wind stirred up around him, whipping the freshly fallen leaves into a tornado around him in a mocking mirror of the worries suddenly rushing around in a tornado inside his mind.

Altair sped up and did his best to ignore it all.


	5. Chapter 5

Altair walked out of the garden without glancing backwards, and headed into the staff dormitories. His room was the only one on the top floor, a cramped affair with a low roof but large windows that suited Altair perfectly. It was out of the way, so most people didn't bother going all the way up there. Desmond, before he left, had consistently referred to the room as Altair's nest. Obnoxious bird calls had normally accompanied this name, which had bothered Altair every single time. He had retaliated mostly by reminding Desmond that he was terrified of heights.

It was one of the many things the two of them did not agree on, only one entry in a long list that also included everything from their favorite type of music to their long term plans for the future. They were as dissimilar as it was possible for two people to be, which hadn't stopped them from becoming best friends when they first met.

Altair paused a few minutes next to the room's largest window, surveying the school spread out below him. The main building, where most of the classrooms were located, was nothing but a flat box from this perspective. Three stories high, freshly painted and full of painful teenage memories. Altair chose not to spend more than a moment or two looking there.

The main building was surrounded by a wall, more decorative than defensive. Altair had fond memories of scaling the walls and making a dash to freedom on Saturday nights. His mouth quirked up into something like a smile, and his gaze moved onward to the four circular towers built at each corner of the walls. Or three, technically- the fourth, and smallest, was the staff dormitory he was in at the moment. The two adjacent were the male dormitories (to the north) and female (to the west).

The last remaining tower was twice as tall as any of the others, and at certain times of the day managed to cast a shadow over the entire grounds. Most of the graduates of the academy ended up working there, researching new potions or alchemical procedures. Some of them, such as Altair, also worked (or served time) as teachers in the school, but it was really the research that had put Davenport Academy on the map, and still brought in the largest amount of money.

Sufficiently calmed now, Altair crossed the length of his room and stopped in front of a cluttered shelf. Most of his room was almost barren in its cleanliness, but this was where he allowed himself to keep the memories he didn't quite want to get rid of. There was an old medal he'd gotten in the sixth grade for winning the science fair (his first experimentation in brewing potions), a letter his father had written him before he died (crinkled and yellow from age, stained from the years Altair had carried it around with him as a child), and half a dozen framed photographs.

The most recent had been taken when he and Desmond were sixteen, just before Desmond fought with his father and left the academy. In the picture, Altair was leaning against a wall, raising a skeptical eyebrow at Desmond, who was bent over laughing at some long forgotten joke. It had probably been a something stupid, Altair decided idly as he studied the picture. Most of Desmond's jokes were stupid.

Apart from the expressions on their face, and the slightly darker tint to Altair's skin, the two were practically indistinguishable. Even the scars on their mouths were the same, a testament to the stupidity they had been capable of as teenagers.

The rest of the pictures were more of the same- Desmond and himself, in various situations, getting younger as his eyes moved from right to left across the shelf. It was only when he got to the far left, and the earliest picture, that there was anything different to see. If he hadn't known any better, he would have assumed the two boys in this picture (ten years old, young and naive) were strangers. One was pale with a mop of dirty blonde hair falling over his face, sporting a fresh black eye. The other was dark skinned and dark haired, with his face covered in sticky, half dried up mud. Both were grinning as they crowded together, as close as they could get to the camera. That had been before they were brothers, before the magic that brought them as close as it was possible for two people to be.

Altair looked at that picture, and the memory of his first meeting with Desmond came creeping back into his mind like an old familiar visitor.

-/-

 _August, Fourteen Years Earlier_

Altair was allowed exactly twelve hours to say goodbye to his father after the man's death. They had both known it was inevitable. Some diseases could not be cured by magic or science, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

The cancer took Umar away from Altair slowly, gradually, piece by piece. Altair's mother had died in childbirth, and they had almost nothing in terms of material possessions. Sometimes, late at night when their tiny apartment went quiet and dark, Altair would lie awake and wonder what he would have left when his father was gone. Most of the time on those nights, he would end up crawling into bed with his father, squeezing into the space between the man's slowly decaying body and the wall behind him. The rest of the time, he stayed in his own bed and got no sleep at all.

He was in bed with Umar on the night his father simply stopped breathing. He looked at the clock on the wall (4:30 AM) because he watched too much TV and knew he was supposed to pay attention to that. For the death certificate. Then he curled into a ball and cried (wet, silent tears) until his father's body faded from warm to room temperature. Then Altair got out of bed, picked up the ancient phone on the wall next to the fridge, and called 911 (6:00 AM).

The ambulance took it's time coming (6:15 AM), and Altair wasn't really sure why it bothered to come at all. He was a little foggy on who exactly took the body away, but by breakfast time (9:30 AM) the paramedics were gone, Umar's body had been removed, and the social worker had arrived.

The social worker asked him if his father had any surviving relatives or plans for how he wanted to be buried. Altair said there was no family and he didn't know what his father wanted. The social worker turned his attention to figuring out what to do with the newest orphan in his overloaded case file (10:15 AM). They had a very civil conversation, which devolved into an argument when the social worker lost his temper with Altair's stubbornness, and ended when Altair lost _his_ , and summoned a localized tornado to follow the social worker around the room (11:00 AM), and then left (11:05 AM).

He must have called some people after he left, because Altair wasn't allowed to be alone for very long after that. An old man with a cane arrived before long (2:00 PM) and had a long conversation with Altair that started by his asking how long he'd been able to do magic like that. Altair had almost politely told him to go screw himself, because as far as he knew at that point, there was nothing special about being able to summon up extreme weather patterns when he was upset. He didn't have a lot of friends; he didn't know what normal was supposed to look like.

The old man, Achilles, had told Altair that he was _special_ for being able to do that, and with a few years of training and education he would be able to do even more. Anyone could do alchemy, Achilles had explained. Or brew potions, or enchant items. These spells took some training, but in the end they were skills as mundane as baking or carpentry. Anyone could do them. The kind of magic Altair could do, pulling energy out of the air and making it do what he wanted, was called elemental. The talent for that was born, not made, and was far rarer. He invited Altair to have a place in his school and Altair, freshly orphaned with nowhere else to go, his ego freshly stoked by compliments he had never heard before, agreed (3:15 PM).

Achilles left Altair alone to pack his things. Then he came back (4:30 PM) and took Altair away. Twelve hours exactly from the time his father died.

The academy could not have been more different from the home Altair had just left. He was surrounded by other kids his age, more wealth than he had seen in his entire life, and magic. It was amazing, so much so that sometimes he even managed to forget about Umar. He always made sure to feel guilty when he remembered, forcing the feeling onto himself when it didn't come naturally. After all, his father didn't have any other family to remember him.

When he moved into the fifth grade dorm, there were already four other boys there. They were okay, mostly. Not great but okay. And there was one empty bed in the corner that Altair spent a lot of time wondering about at first, but eventually lost interest in. Halfway through October, he woke up and found a skinny kid with skin the color of milk sitting on the previously empty bed. His nose was the color of a ripe tomato, and he snored a little.

"Hey-" Altair tossed his pillow at the only other boy awake at this hour to get his attention. "Abbas!"

"What?"

"Who's the new kid?"

"You," Abbas said, and Altair rolled his eyes. Twice, when Abbas didn't seem to notice the first time. He'd already been there for two whole months, he didn't think he counted as the new kid anymore.

"Him," he said, pointing.

"Oh." Abbas's voice was dismissive and uninterested. "That's just Desmond." He looked back at Altair and gave a long, drawn out sigh when he saw Altair's body language demanding more information. "He's out sick, like a lot. His dad works for the school, he's like some big deal in the research tower. That's the only reason he's here, because he sucks at magic."

"Do not," a tiny voice protested, and Altair realized Desmond must have been woken up by their voices.

"You miss like _all_ our classes," Abbas said, as Desmond sat up and rubbed his eyes. He had a petulant frown on his face that made Abbas sneer as he kept talking. "You're always sick, and you cry like a little baby when whenever we get our report cards."

"Do not!" Desmond repeated. He jumped out of bed, almost stumbling on his bedsheets. Altair noticed that Desmond barely came up to his chest- he was _tiny_.

"Baby!" Abbas taunted, and Desmond launched himself at him. It was a good effort, plenty of anger behind it, but Abbas was bigger and batted Desmond away like a mosquito, landing a good hit on the smaller boy's face. Desmond stumbled back, pressing his hand to his face in a way that might have been because of the pain or because he was trying hard not to cry. If it was the crying thing, he wasn't doing a very good job. His lip started to tremble, and Altair heard a sniff at the same time Abbas shouted "Ha!"

Altair considered the scene for a long second. This wasn't his fight, and if Desmond needed Altair to step in and protect him, he really was the baby Abbas kept accusing him of being. On the other hand, the immaturity of Abbas's teasing made him really uncomfortable, and he kind of wanted it to stop. He got up, and walked toward Abbas without saying a single word. When they were very close, Altair grinned like a cherub and pulled his hand into a tight fist at his side.

The mudslide that cascaded down onto Abbas's unprotected head and shoulders was tightly focused, less than a foot in diameter, but no less intense. If Altair had been better trained, he might have been able to prevent the splatter that soaked his own face and neck, but that was a small price to pay for the look of outrage on Abbas's face.

"You- what- _why!"_

But then there was Desmond, laughing and leaning forward to high five Altair. "You are _awesome_ ," he said. "Let's be best friends."

-/-

"Kid's back," Warren announced Wednesday afternoon. This time, Arno was trailing along behind him, all proud and puffed up with his official visitor's badge pinned onto his shirt. "Gist said you told him to bring him up if he came back."

"Right," Shay agreed. "Thank you, Warren."

The boy gave him a skeptical look, and Shay sighed at the question he obviously wanted to ask. "What?"

"Is this really professional, sir?" he asked. "This is a place of business, not a daycare."

"Not to be overly technical," Shay said. "But a daycare _is_ a place of business."

"Sir," Warren said, in a voice that almost pleaded with him to start taking this more seriously.

"Don't worry about any of this," Shay said. "If anyone has an issue with Arno, I'm going to take all the blame. None of this falls on you."

"I have a little brother," Warren said skeptically. "They're monsters at that age, I promise. This kid's not going to be anything but trouble either."

"Don't be mean to your brother," Arno piped up, frowning at Warren. "It's not his fault."

"Do you know my brother?" Warren asked, momentarily startled out of his surly dissatisfaction.

"No," Arno said, and Warren's gaze flicked down to Arno's unnervingly pale blue eyes. He gave him a withering look and walked off, muttering something about psychics. Shay sat down and lifted Arno onto a clear space on his workstation. "You're going to behave, right?"

Arno nodded, frowning. "But you're still going to get in trouble," he admitted. "I'm sorry, I didn't see that until I got inside."

Great. Shay put on a brave face and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it," he said.

"Do you want me to go away?"

"Never," Shay said, and he didn't have to be psychic to predict the look of surprise on Arno's face. Every time, whenever Shay gave Arno the slightest hint that he cared, that he was thinking about him, it was like he made Arno's entire day. "But please try and behave," he added, keeping his voice light in spite of the sudden worry- his boss wasn't the kind of guy he wanted to be on the wrong side of. "I want to be in a _little_ bit of trouble instead of a lot, okay?"

Arno nodded, and for the rest of the afternoon he was as good as his word. He'd brought his ninja turtle backpack like usual, and spread himself out under Shay's table with a handful of little green army men. There was enough room under there for him to play without getting in Shay's way, and there was something reassuring about looking down and seeing him still playing there, humming quietly to himself and occasionally imitating tiny explosions.

As the hands of the clock on the wall over the door inched onward toward 5:00, Shay started surreptitiously packing his things up to leave. It was expected (although not mandated) that employees stay late and finish their work, especially if they expected to manage a promotion into something that was actually interesting. Normally, Shay had nothing to hurry home to and no reason not to stay late, but Arno's prediction of trouble hadn't yet come true and he was starting to hope it might not ever.

Which was when Warren came back over, with obvious reluctance. Shay felt that reluctance mirrored on his own face, and tried to hide it. The little twerp was really starting to get on his nerves, and seriously, how long was his internship was supposed to last? Shouldn't he be getting back to school at some point? "What now?" he asked.

"You're wanted upstairs."

There was only one floor higher than the fifth, and only one reason to be sent there. While each floor had a supervisor of its own, the sixth floor was where the regional manager of the _entire_ branch spent his workdays. No one knew what he actually did there, but the rumors varied from 'stuck doing paperwork all day' to 'some kind of top secret spell research' to 'sitting around in a miniature hot tub watching sports'. Regardless, the only thing Shay knew for certain was that he wasn't supposed to be there, and the fact that he had just been summoned upstairs meant he was _deep_ in the shit.

"You're in trouble," Arno said, crawling out from under the table. His voice rose into a nervous whine. "See, I told you!" He was shivering suddenly as if under an intense wind; the overwhelming effect of this was to make him seem even smaller and more waifish than usual. "This is exactly what I saw!"

"I'm not in trouble," Shay said, but Arno was looking at something over his shoulder with big, wet eyes. Shay turned around just in time to catch Warren nodding at Arno and mouthing _yes he is._ Shay scowled at the brat and considered hitting him.

"It's going to be fine," he said instead, and was really impressed by the way his voice sounded perfectly steady. "Don't worry. And _don't_ go anywhere by yourself, alright?"

Arno nodded, but it was obvious from the tightness in his body and the shivering that still wracked his thin frame that he was scared; Shay considered asking Warren to stay there and make sure he actually did as he was told, then reconsidered. All things considered, he trusted Arno more than Warren. So instead, he just smiled reassuringly and headed upstairs.

The fifth floor was tall(er than it had to be) with high vaulted ceilings, so Shay had to climb longer than he expected before coming to a heavy wooden door on a small landing. He knocked, the sharp rap echoing too loudly against the wood. It was apparently enchanted, because it swung open on silent, well-oiled hinges without anyone opening it on the other side. Shay cleared his throat to get the awkward tightness out of it, and went inside.

Haytham Kenway looked exactly the same on the one occasion Shay had seen him before, when he was interviewed for his current job. That had been a brief formality, as Shay had already been interviewed by his supervisor, the supervisor on the floor below, and then his supervisor again. The only difference between then and now was that this time Shay had no idea what to expect. "You called me in, sir?" he asked.

Haytham gestured at the empty chair on the side of the desk closest to Shay, but Shay hesitated before actually sitting down. "I just want to tell you that I really enjoy working here," he said. "And I value my job, so if there's anything that needs to be improved on, just let me know and I'll do my best to change-"

"Just sit," Haytham said, and this time Shay did as he was told. He felt like a kid being called into the principal's office, and the steady, appraising look Haytham leveled at him did absolutely nothing to destroy that illusion. Shay wanted to say something, but decided not to make things worse.

"Caring for a child," Haytham began eventually. "Is a very difficult responsibility that only gets worse as the child gets older."

"It can't be all bad though, can it?" Shay said tentatively.

"Of course not," Haytham said. "Depending on the child it can be better or worse, but either way it is _difficult_."

Shay nodded numbly, not entirely sure where this was going. He had expected Haytham to immediately order that Arno be banned from the building, and possibly that Shay be fired for good measure. Instead, this seemed like it was turning into a weird parenting lesson. Maybe Haytham wasn't as upset as Shay had feared. "Sir?" he said, because there was no other response he could think of that seemed safe at the moment.

"My son, for example. When he was a toddler, there was toilet training and childproofing, and I thought those were difficult to deal with. Then he started school, and suddenly he was facing the real world for the first time, and he needed help with everything. But eventually he got over that stage too, and started doing things for himself. Of course, now he's a teenager and that's an all new kind of torture." He offered a small smile, and Shay finally got it.

"Oh!" he said. "We're talking about your son."

"Yes," Haytham said. "I thought I made that clear when I started with the words 'My son, for example'."

"You're right," Shay said quickly. "Sorry, sir."

"What did you think I was talking about?"

"I thought-" He was flustered suddenly by the unexpected turn this had taken. "This kid… he's in a bad place at home, so I told him he could come find me when he needs something. He's been here a few times now, I thought you might be upset about that."

"Well is he getting in the way?" Haytham looked a bit off kilter himself, and for a second they shared the uncertain silence of two people that have just realized they're having entirely different conversations. Then Shay shook his head no, and Haytham shrugged. "Well as long as he doesn't start."

"Thank you sir. But if you don't mind me asking, why exactly did you call me up here to talk about your son?"

"A few months ago, he told me he'd like to go away to school. He said he wanted to concentrate on his studies, but I suspect he wanted to move several states away from me."

"I'm sorry-"

"He's fourteen. I expected it. The point is that the school he chose is somewhere that may sound familiar to you."

Shay felt the smile freeze on his face, and he suddenly felt cold. "Davenport," he said.

"Imagine my surprise when I started to do my research and found that you have spent your entire adult life there, doing some very impressive work. None of which, for some reason, was listed on your resume when you applied here, for an entry level position you are apparently vastly overqualified for. A lie like that has to have a reason behind it, and quite frankly you now have a choice between telling me that reason, and losing your job."

"No!" Shay protested. "I- I _really_ need this job." It had taken him ages to get even this job, he didn't want to start over. Especially when he was starting to find friends in the city, with Gist and Desmond, and _whatever_ Arno was to him, he couldn't walk away now.

"Then just tell me. Why did you leave Davenport, and why did you lie about it when you applied? If you'd told the truth at the beginning, you wouldn't have been started on the fifth floor. You could have been doing something more interesting, for higher pay. But instead, you-"

"There was an accident," Shay said, when he couldn't stand to hear Haytham talk for a moment longer. The words came out easily enough, but after that he couldn't think of anything at all to say. He didn't talk about this often. Ever, really.

"Were people hurt?" Haytham prompted. "Property damage?" His questions were met with nothing but silence. "Cormac."

"What you have to understand," Shay said slowly. "Is that it wasn't my fault. Everyone agrees that it wasn't my fault." Even Hope, which was saying something since she had blamed him for literally everything that went wrong while they were dating. "There were over a dozen of us working on the project, and we agreed the chances of anything going wrong were small. Tiny. _Infinitesimal_."

"And yet I'm assuming that something did."

Shay shrugged. "We combined the wrong spells, or used the wrong enchantments, something like that. The project was cancelled right afterwards, so we never figured out the exact cause. One night, I stayed late in the lab. I wasn't even working, I was…" He'd been waiting to meet Hope, which was none of Haytham's business and also no longer relevant. "I was there for personal reasons. But something reacted wrong and there was an explosion."

"I didn't hear anything about an explosion," Haytham said. "And I was pretty thorough with my research."

"Explosion might not be the right word," Shay admitted. "It wasn't… there was no fire, or combustion, it was just spells interacting in the wrong way."

"And?"

"And... well, there was no property damage," Shay said slowly. "But I didn't exactly come out of it unscathed." And he began, very slowly, to tell Haytham what had happened to make him leave Davenport so abruptly. At the end of it, Haytham took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

"That's quite a story," he said.

"I know," Shay agreed. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Absolutely not," Haytham said sharply. "You say you can control these... these side effects?"

"Most of the time," Shay admitted. "It's harder when I get angry."

"Work on that," Haytham said. "And take a few days off. Come back on Monday, and report to the second floor."

"Are you promoting me, or do you intend to use me as something to study?"

"The first," Haytham said. "If you worked at Davenport, you have one of the best magical educations it's possible to get in this country. There's no reason to waste that on the fifth floor."

"I- thank you, sir," Shay said. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything," Haytham said. "Just do good work."

"I will," Shay said. He stood up, hovering uncertainly near the chair. "Can I go now, sir?"

Haytham nodded, and Shay almost bolted to the door. He'd nearly reached it when Haytham stopped him. "Cormac," he called. "I understand that what happened to you was unfortunate. But if you're ever interested in finding a way to _use_ that misfortune, come talk to me."

"I'll think about it," Shay said, but as he hurried through the door and back down the stairs, all he was thinking about was getting back to Arno. He was looking forward to telling the boy his vision hadn't turned out to be at all as bad as he'd assumed it would be.

 **-/-**

 **Important note: I'm looking for a beta/sounding board/whatever for this story. Mostly I need someone to bounce ideas off, and ideally someone that would be willing to help me figure out how magic works in this world. If you're interested, please let me know: drop me a PM and we'll talk.**


	6. Chapter 6

There was nothing noble about the way Shay pulled Arno close and didn't let go. He could (and did) tell himself half a hundred times that he was doing Arno a favor by bringing him home and keeping him away from his father a while, but that wasn't the whole truth. More like a lucky side effect. In the aftermath of baring the worst parts of himself to a man he barely knew, Shay wanted the comfort that came from being surrounded by people that care. More importantly, he needed people didn't know where he had come from and what had been done to him, so that he could just feel… normal for a while.

So he asked Arno if he wanted to stay the night, and wasn't at all surprised when Arno was ecstatic to hear the suggestion. For the same reason, he called both Gist and Desmond as soon as he and Arno got back to his apartment. Right now, they were the only people in the whole world that were anything close to friends (and wasn't that sad?).

Gist arrived first, walking the short distance to Shay's apartment as soon as his shift was over. He peppered Shay with questions about what they were doing and if something was wrong, but since he seemed to lose interest in his questions as soon as they were asked, Shay found he didn't mind being probed much. Soon enough, he was distracted by playing with Arno, chasing him around the apartment with purposefully slow steps while Arno shrieked and giggled in excitement, climbing the backs of chairs and diving over couches to get away.

Desmond came later, just as Shay was starting to think he never would. "Sorry," he apologized when Shay opened the door to him. "My phone was dead and I only just got your text."

"It's fine," Shay said, and watched as Desmond's eyes flicked to Arno. "That's the kid?"

It took Shay a minute to remember that Desmond had been there, working, on the day Charles came into the bar and unloaded his parenting responsibilities onto Shay. "Does his dad know he's here?"

"As far as I can tell, his dad very rarely knows where he is."

Arno smashed into Shay's legs, hiding from Gist's slow chase. "Daddy's in Indiana," he said. "With elephants."

"You mean India," Shay prompted. "India has the elephants."

"That's what I said!"

"Sure you did." Desmond sat down settled himself cross legged in front of Arno. "Elephants are cool, right?"

"Yea…" He stared at Desmond for a long minute, head tilted to one side, mouth working as if he were trying to figure out a difficult problem. Desmond glanced uncertainly up at Shay.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked.

"No," said Shay (who had no idea). He stepped forward and picked Arno up, carefully because Arno kept twisting around to keep his eyes on Desmond. Finally, Shay pulled him close so they could whisper. "What's wrong?"

"I'm seeing something," Arno whispered back. "On Desmond? But I don't get it."

"Tell me about it," Shay suggested, and Arno nodded.

"Okay," he said. "It's just two Desmonds. But, um… they're not the same person? I think?"

"What are they doing?" Shay prompted.

"Nothing." Arno shrugged his bony little shoulders. "Just talking."

"Well that's not bad, right?"

"Um…" Shay waited patiently while Arno worked through his hesitancy. He wasn't great with patience, but Arno didn't seem to work well under pressure. "Did you ever draw a picture on one piece of paper, and then draw _another_ picture on a _second_ piece of paper, and then put them both in front of the light so you can see both of them at the same time?"

"Sure," Shay said. "So?"

"It kinda looks like that. I can see two Desmonds, but at the same time two other people? I never saw anything like it before and I don't know what it means."

"I do," Desmond interrupted. Arno jerked a little and clutched at Shay in something that might have been fear. Shay raised his eyebrows and waited patiently for Desmond's explanation. He didn't start with the explanation though, but got up and offered an apologetic smile to Arno. "Sorry little man," he said. "I didn't mean to freak you out."

"I was talking to _Shay_ ," Arno said stiffly. "Not you! It was _private_."

"I won't listen next time," Desmond promised.

"And I'm not little," Arno went on. "I'm four. And a half. _Almost five._ Not a baby!"

"Man, you just can't do anything right, can you?" Gist asked, clapping Desmond on the back.

"Apparently not," Desmond agreed. "Sorry, Arno, are we okay?"

He nodded reluctantly, and Shay took the opportunity to press Desmond for answers. "You said you could explain?" he asked. "You were talking about Arno's vision, right?"

"Yea," Desmond agreed.

"Can you see the future too?" Arno asked. "Is that how you know what's going on?"

"No, I just… know what you're talking about." He pulled out his wallet and pulled out a picture. "This is me and my brother, Arno. His name's Altair."

"Oh!" Arno took the picture, studied it for several seconds, and then turned it so Shay could see too. He looked down, curious, and saw a picture of Desmond, maybe ten years out of date. Next to him was another boy that did actually look remarkably like him. "It's your brother, Desmond? Not two of you?"

"There's only ever been one of me," Desmond said. He cracked a smile. "My dad would probably have had a heart attack if there were. He always said just having to put up with me was bad enough."

"Some dad you've got there," Gist said drily.

"Oh yea."

"See, Arno?" Shay said. "There's nothing weird going on here."

"Well…" Desmond tucked the picture back into his wallet. "I didn't say there was _nothing_ weird."

"Yea," Arno said. "Like how come you look like different people at the same time!"

"Bleeding effect," Gist said, and everyone else in the room turned to look at him. "It's the only explanation I can think of that fits."

"What's that?" Shay asked, and Arno had a wary look on his face that Shay assumed meant he was probably worried about bleeding and injuries of some kind. Desmond, for his part, looked startled.

"Yea," he said. "Yea, actually, that's exactly right. How did you- I mean, I'm used to having to explain it to people."

"Well explain it to _me,_ one of you," Shay interrupted.

"There's a rare potion- like, a really rare potion, like-" Gist waved his arms around dramatically. "Like, I think I've only ever heard of one other pair of people using it. It's called Anima, or Animus, off the Latin for soul."

"So it's hard to make?" Shay asked.

"Really easy," Desmond corrected. "You can buy the ingredients from a regular pharmacy. We sto- we bought like half of our ingredients from Walgreens."

"So why is it so rare?" Shay asked.

"Couple of reasons," Desmond said, taking over the explanation from Gist. "First, you know as well as I do that potions and spells go through phases of being popular. A century ago everyone was using this, and then it fell out of fashion, people stopped using it and writing it and talking about it. And also, it's kind of a big commitment. See, what this potion actually does is it takes the DNA of two people and brings them closer to a kind of medium between them."

He waved his hands vaguely as if forcing two things together. "So… for example, before we took the potion, he was four inches taller than me. He lost two inches and I grew two. He's half Middle Eastern, I'm… a little of everything but I started out pretty pale. We ended up the same color after the potion. And you know, there were a hundred other changes that ended with the two of us looking basically the same. There's also a telepathy that comes with the potion. That took a while to get used to, but it's impossible to be lonely when you always have your brother's voice in your head."

"That's what the bleeding effect means," Gist interrupted. Shay looked over at him, confused at the weird tag team nature this explanation was starting to take. "Two people bleeding into each other. Then there's a historical aspect, too. The potion was first discovered in 1196, and back then people didn't know anything about genetics. One of the ingredients used is blood, so… bleeding effect."

"Why would you do that to yourselves?" Shay asked. "It sounds kind of horrible." It had to be painful to go through that kind of mutation, and then there was the telepathy, which sounded obnoxious at best and invasive at worst. "Some potions drop out of popularity for a reason."

"I… was a little bit desperate," Desmond admitted. "I was sick a lot, when I was a kid. Missed a lot of things. School, friends, everything. I was stuck in hospitals a lot. My dad was pissed all the time; he never came right out and said it was my fault, but he made it very clear he didn't have time to _deal_ with me. And the other kids at school picked up on that, they never wanted anything to do with me. Altair was the first person that ever stuck up for me in my life, and also my first and best friend.

"He was always worried about how sick I was. His dad got sick and died a couple months before we met, so… you know. He was concerned. When we were twelve I got worse, and he decided to do something about it. The illness was genetic, and he found this animus potion that actually changes genetics. We did our research, and figured we had a fifty percent chance of my sick chromosomes changing to match his normal ones, and a fifty percent chance of changing his normal chromosomes to match my sick ones."

"You're both crazy," Shay said flatly. "You would have risked killing your friend to get the chance to save yourself?"

"It does seem a little bit risky," Gist agreed quietly. "If you were so close, why would you let that happen?"

"It was his idea," Desmond said. "And things worked out for the best."

"That must be nice," Arno said into the glowering silence growing between the three adults. "I want a friend like that. Are you _actually_ brothers?"

"It's complicated," Desmond said. "He's been there for me like my birth family never has. We have the same DNA now, because of that potion. We weren't born brothers, but as far as I'm concerned, we are now. In every way that counts."

Shay was about to argue the point farther, but then Arno gave a longing sigh that seemed to use up all the breath in his lungs, and sagged against the table. Shay glanced at Desmond and Gist over the top of the boy's head, and together they reached the unspoken agreement not to argue this anymore, at least not in front of Arno. There was something about the kid that just seemed to invite protectiveness, from everyone besides his father apparently.

"How about pizza?" Gist suggested brightly, pulling out his phone. "I'll even pay for delivery."

"Pizza!"

Shay laughed at the little dance Arno started up in response to the pizza, a genuine laugh that made Arno's dance get a little bit crazier and left Shay breathless. "You're a good kid, Arno. You really are."

-/-

There was a window in the basement that Arno used every single time he needed to leave or enter his house without anyone seeing. It was on the side next to the less nosy neighbors, and more than wide enough for him to squeeze through. There was a couch underneath it on the other side, and when Arno landed he could stand on his tiptoes and reach up to just barely get his hands around the window latch to close it back up again.

He had never stayed out overnight before, and he hadn't slept much in Shay's apartment, too excited about the whole thing to settle or close his eyes. Also, Shay didn't know what his bedtime was and Arno had decided not to tell him (he'd gotten to stay up until _10:30_ ). But now that he was home, his limbs and eyelids felt heavy, and Arno dropped onto the couch, bouncing a little and yawning. He curled up into a ball with his back to the wall, and had almost fallen asleep when the nanny came downstairs.

"There you are," she said. She sounded exasperated, but Arno had never heard her sound like anything else and wasn't put out by this at all. "Did you sleep down here last night?"

He nodded without opening his eyes.

"Why weren't you in your bed?"

He shrugged.

"Well, whatever works for you," the nanny said skeptically. "Anyway, time to get up!"

He groaned and finally opened his eyes, if only for a second. When he was tired, his visions got harder to control and he started seeing too much at the same time. Normally he could block some of them out if he tried hard enough but right now he felt icky and it hurt just to open his eyes.

This nanny was bad at taking care of him, but she had the most boring life _ever_. Even when he was really tired like this and seeing a whole lot of futures at the same time, all he had to look at were (he squinted and counted on his fingers) one-two-three-four-five parts of her future where she was kissing boys or talking on her phone. Boring…

"I wanna keep sleeping," he said.

"Your dad's coming home early," she said. "He's going to be here in an hour."

"Can I sleep until he gets here?"

"No, Arno." He whined at her and buried his face in the couch, but she picked him up around the waist and carried him away upstairs. He moped while she put him in the bathtub and scrubbed him down, and complained as she picked out clean clothes for him to wear. Then she went downstairs to wait for his daddy, and Arno crawled into bed and curled up tight under the blankets.

He only meant to close his eyes for a little while, but when he opened them again the room had gone dark and the sun had already gone down. There was a hand on his forehead and he didn't have to be psychic to figure out whose it was. "Daddy?"

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yea." Arno sat up and rubbed at his eyes. His daddy was perched on the end of his bed, eyes on Arno's pillow, the shadow of his future playing out against the wall behind him. Arno watched for a minute, but the sight of Shay in the future blowing up his daddy wasn't anything new or interesting anymore. "How come?"

"It's late and you're still sleeping," his daddy said. He looked tired and stiff in his rumpled work clothes, with his sleeves rolled up and his tie loose.

"I'm not sick," Arno said, and watched his daddy's frown get bigger. He shifted his knees around underneath him, trying to figure out a way to get closer. But his daddy was sitting in a weird place next to the wall, still not quite looking at him, and there was no good way for Arno to get closer. He settled for pulling his pillow up to his chest and hugging it.

"Then what were you doing last night that kept you from sleeping?"

"…Nothing. I slept."

"Arno, I've been on six planes in the last week. I'm having problems at work, and I do not have time to figure out what you're lying to me about."

"I was with Shay," Arno said. "You told me it was okay!"

"Then don't _lie_ about it," his daddy said, and Arno felt his excitement start to flag. Sometimes when his daddy came home, it was fun and they spent time together. More often it was like this, and Arno could never figure out the right thing to say or do to make everything okay again.

"I'm sorry."

"Yes, well…" His daddy stood up and gave Arno a look. "I swear, Arno, sometimes I just don't know what to do with you."

"It's not hard!" Arno threw the pillow aside and scrambled off the bed. His daddy stopped at the door and Arno jumped on the chance to be listened to. "You don't have to do anything, just pay attention!" There were tears on his face that he didn't want. "Just look at me!"

"Arno, calm down. You're working yourself up over nothing."

"No!"

"Arno!"

"Daddy!"

He wasn't going to win this, but that only made him feel more stubborn and angry. "Why can't I ever do anything? I have to stay in here all the time, and when I go see anyone else you get _mad_!"

His daddy blinked a couple of times, then scratched his head. "I thought I had an entire decade left before I had to put up with you being a teenager," he said.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. But you know that you're… very, very special, Arno. I don't want you to be in danger and I don't want you to put anyone else in danger because you don't know how to manage your gift." He sighed and knelt down, beckoning Arno closer. Arno took the first step reluctantly, and then sped up because hugs. Hugs were good. When that was done, Charles pulled back and looked at Arno. "Okay," he said. "I'm listening. What do you want, exactly?"

"Can I have a brother?" Arno asked. He was still thinking about Desmond and Altair.

"Not unless your mother comes back."

"Why do we need her?" She had left before Arno could even remember her. There was a picture on the shelf next to the fireplace, so all Arno actually knew was that she was never ever coming back and she was pretty.

"I'll tell you when you're older," his daddy said, and then quickly changed the subject when Arno started to ask what that meant. "Something else."

"Can I go to school?"

"N-" But then he stopped suddenly, actually thinking about the question. "You know what, I think I can make that work."

"Really?" School meant leaving the house, and going to see other kids, and having friends. "I love you daddy."

Which made his daddy sigh and shake his head. "You're such a difficult child, Arno."

Arno didn't say anything, but he _thought_ about how that wasn't what Shay thought about him at all.


	7. Chapter 7

_"Desmond."_

Altair waited until evening, when most of the homestead was asleep, before trying to talk to his brother. It had been… he couldn't remember how long since they'd last spoken, a new and depressing record for them. Months, at least, which was at least as much Altair's fault as Desmond. Months ago, Liam had implied that Desmond was already involved with Shay.

But the thing was, Desmond _knew_ about Shay. Right after the accident, back when they still talked regularly, Altair had told Desmond what happened. At the time, Desmond had seemed suitably horrified, he had _agreed_ that Shay was dangerous- what was he doing, getting involved with him now?

After several minutes without a response, Altair tried again, shouting into the confines of his own mind. _"Desmond!"_

This time, there was something like movement in his mind, in the place Desmond had moved into back when they were kids and first took that potion. _"What?"_

He'd meant to start asking questions about Shay but the distracted tone in Desmond's voice made him pause. _"What's wrong?"_

A long pause. _"Nothing. Sorry, I'm just in the middle of something."_

 _"Do you want to talk later?"_ And then, because they hadn't spoken in months and months, he added, _"Soon."_

 _"No, we can talk now. What's up?"_

He didn't mention Shay first, but only because it was so much harder to filter his thoughts than it would have been to hide his intentions if they were speaking in person. Instead, his traitorous brain said, _"I miss you."_

 _"I'm not coming back while my dad's there,"_ Desmond said firmly. _"Life has been way better without him looking over my shoulder all the time. I don't have to use magic for anything, and most of the time I don't. I have a job I don't hate. I have friends. It's-"_

 _"Easier?"_ Altair suggested.

 _"Nothing wrong with that."_

 _"Whatever,"_ Altair huffed. _"I wasn't talking about coming back, anyway. I don't blame you for not wanting to be around your dad, he's a jerk. But we can still_ talk _, you know? Like we used to?"_

 _"Sure,"_ Desmond said. _"If that's what you want."_ And then, all in a rush he said, _"I missed you too. And I'm sorry we haven't talked much lately, it's just that I sort of started doing something that I don't think- that I know you're not going to like. And I didn't want you pissed with me because we've known each other forever and I guess I don't really know what I would do if I didn't have you anymore."_

 _"Don't be stupid, Des,"_ Altair said. _"We have literally never agreed on anything, ever. Why would this be any different?"_

 _"First of all, you're using literally wrong. Second… remember when you told me about this guy, Shay Cormac? The guy that had that… accident, or whatever? The one you refused to give me details on? And you said last anyone heard he'd run off and was headed here?"_

 _"I remember,"_ Altair said, warily because he already knew Desmond had done something, he just didn't know what yet. _"So?"_

 _"So… he's here. He just wandered into the bar where I work one day. And then he kept coming back. He seemed… I don't know. Sad. Not really dangerous, like you said he was supposed to be. So I emailed Liam, since you said that guy you said was his friend, and we worked something out."_

 _"What does that mean?"_ Altair demanded. _"Worked what out?"_

 _"See? This is why I didn't want to tell you!"_

 _"Desmond!"_

 _"He needed someone to run surveillance on Shay. I guess he had someone else doing it but the guy flaked, so he asked me. It's not too bad. Sometimes he comes into the bar, and that's easy. But after a while I figured that I was getting paid to do the job right so I figured I should try to get closer to him."_ Altair knew Desmond must be able to feel the growing unease in his mind, because strong emotions leaked through whether they wanted them to or not. He ignored it, though, and kept going. _"I faked a chance meeting at a grocery store and we started talking- now I guess you can say that we're friends."_

 _"Except he doesn't know you're lying to him, spying on him, and only pretending to be his friend."_ He didn't want for confirmation, but launched into an explanation of exactly what was wrong with this. _"First of all, he's dangerous. You know that, and you're still hanging around with him. Second, you're intentionally provoking him by lying. Third, even if he wasn't a threat, it would still be a terrible move. You're lying about being his friend which is just- it's just a dick move."_

There was absolute silence for a moment, and when Desmond spoke again it was slowly, with great emphasis placed on each syllable. _"Listen. I'm not pretending. Shay is a decent guy, and he's doing his best. Do I feel like a piece of shit for spying on him sometimes? Yea, absolutely. But I'm not going to stop, because the next guy might not care what happens to him. Listen, do you want to see where I am right now?"_

 _"What does that have to do with anything?"_

But Desmond didn't answer. Instead, he started pulling at Altair inside his mind, drawing him toward himself. Altair resisted for a second or two, but Desmond was insistent. In the end, he let himself be carried around by the current. His vision blurred, and when it cleared again he could see a shimmering, ghostlike image of what Desmond could see, overlaid over the empty room Altair was sitting in.

 _"What is this, a restaurant?"_

 _"Yea."_ There was a fond warmth in Desmond's voice. _"Some tacky pizza place, but Arno likes it, and it's his birthday, so he got to pick. You only turn five once, as he's reminded us all at least half a dozen times already today."_

 _"Who's Arno?"_

The scene shifted as Desmond turned his head, focusing on the table he was sitting in. There were two other men, one of them a stranger and one of them _Shay_ , and a little boy that had apparently decided he needed to kneel on his chair to reach the table. _"That's Arno,"_ Desmond said. _"The kid."_

 _"Which one of you does he belong to? And please say it isn't you."_

 _"Please,"_ Desmond laughed. _"Technically he doesn't belong to any of us, but… well, it's a complicated story that isn't really relevant right now, but basically his dad… he tries, but he's not around a lot. Shay's sort of been taking care of him."_

Altair looked. He looked at the way Arno turned to Shay and started talking a mile a minute about pizza and birthdays and how he was _so excited_ to be starting school in a week. And he looked at the way Shay smiled back and listened, and the way it made Arno practically squirm with happiness. And it made him angry.

 _"You know about Shay,"_ he said. _"You know what he's done and what he can do, and you're not doing anything to stop him from being around a_ child _."_ _He was shaking a little._ _"I told you! When the accident happened, I_ _know_ _I told you about this!"_ They'd still been talking regularly then, sharing gossip and talking about their lives just because they could.

 _"You did, but Altair…"_

 _"No. I- I'll talk to you later, Desmond. When I'm a little less angry."_

He shook his head sharply to clear the remnants of Desmond's life from his vision, and stood up. It was reckless and irresponsible, and… well, Desmond hadn't been there, during Shay's accident. He'd heard about it from Altair, but hearing about it and seeing it were two very different things. Maybe he just didn't understand, maybe...

Altair shook his head because there was no way to _know_. Once upon a time, he would have known why Desmond wanted to argue this so badly. He used to understand his brother. Maybe... maybe they were starting to grow apart. Altair growled and shook his head, as if he could deny the problem out of existence. "Damn it," he whispered.

-/-

"Desmond, you okay?"

He looked across the table at Arno, who was frowning at him. "You look sad?"

"I'm okay," he said. His head was killing him, a migraine burning its way through the base of his skull. The argument with Altair had left him with the feeling of his head being ripped in two. "Don't worry, Arno. Just eat your pizza."

"Okay." He smiled uncertainly and went back to the slice of pizza on his plate.

"Seriously, Desmond." Shay frowned at him. "What's wrong?"

"Just talking to my brother," Desmond said. He forced a smile, trying not to let on that they'd been talking about Shay. "No big deal. Sometimes we fight. It's what brothers do."

"Don't worry," Shay told him. "Eat some pizza."

"Right." Desmond snorted, feeling slightly better despite the fact that he was now being treated like a five year old. "Because that will fix everything." (But he ate the pizza anyway)

-/-

Liam's monthly mailing of pictures was late in August, but also much thicker than normal. Hope brought it by just after lunch, and settled herself comfortably in one of the chairs near his desk to wait while he looked through it.

"You know," she said casually. "I was talking to Achilles the other day."

"Really?" Hope had an office next to Achilles, and spent a lot of time in private conversation with him. More than any of the others, by far. Many of them, Liam included, believed that she was being groomed to take his place when he passed. The theory was supported by the increase in frequency of their discussions since the old man's health had started to decline. "I find that hard to believe."

"Cut the sarcasm." She scowled at him, which was such a regular occurrence that Liam wasn't even phased. Her anger had terrified him when they were children, but familiarity had taken the sting away. "I had a point."

"Then please," he said. "Make your point."

"He said your reports on Shay have been… uninteresting lately."

"Did he?"

"Nothing of note, he said."

"Well that's odd." Liam slit open the top of the envelope and spread its contents across his desk to examine more closely. There were a lot this month, a collage of normal work (a lot less grim now that he had been promoted out of grunt work), a few of him on his own, a fair number (more than the month before) with friends, and so, _so_ many with the little boy that had started showing up in pictures a while ago.

"That kid's really starting to grow on him," Liam said at last. At least half the pictures on the table had the boy in them, and in every single one he looked happy. "Remember, when we were all… I don't know, thirteen or so? And we had to do that project where we carried electronic babies around for health class?" he chuckled, still looking at the pictures. "And Shay got so frustrated he locked his in a closet and got a 2% on the project, and then swore he was never going to have kids of his own-"

"I remember," Hope said bluntly. "So you're saying he must have some kind of ulterior motive?"

"No," Liam shook his head, smile fading as he saw that Hope still looked entirely unamused. "I just meant… I guess I thought it was funny, how much he's changed. If he was here, if things were different, we would laugh about it."

"There's nothing funny about Shay." She huffed and started to gather the pictures into a tidy heap. "I'm taking these straight to Achilles."

"No, Hope, wait-"

"Why? So you can keep covering up for him?" She huffed and put her hand on her hip. "Why, Liam? I could understand if this was some kind of misplaced loyalty, but you're not even helping him by keeping this secret. All we're trying to do is keep an eye on him, to make sure he doesn't hurt anyone."

"What's the point?" Liam's voice was louder and angrier than he'd meant. "If he blows up at someone, it'll be too late to do anything about it by the time we hear. What's wrong with letting the man just live his life?" He jabbed his finger at the pictures under Hope's arm. "Look at these pictures, Hope, _look_. I know you loved him once, why not let him enjoy whatever happiness he can find?"

"You're getting cold feet," Hope said. "I can't believe it. You were as mad at him as I was when he left."

"I was. But I guess being his best friend for literally decades was more important."

She shot him a withering glare that strongly implied he was an idiot, and left without another word.

"Damn," Liam muttered, once the door had shut. "You used to smile, Hope," he said when there was absolutely no chance of her hearing him. "What happened to that?"

-/-

Shay was used to unexpected visitors in his apartment, but more often than not that meant Arno stopping by without warning. Desmond had never come over without at least calling first, but Sunday morning, the day after Arno's birthday pizza, Shay opened the door to find Desmond standing in the hallway and looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"Desmond." He checked his watch. "It's 9:30, what are you doing here?"

Desmond, who rarely went anywhere that wasn't absolutely necessary before noon, looked awake and alert this morning. For a second, Shay wondered if someone was dead, but that wouldn't explain the tense air that seemed to surround Desmond. "Can we talk?"

"Sure. Is something wrong?"

"Yea." Desmond followed Shay into the apartment, and the two of them sat down at Shay's kitchen table. Normally, this would be the point where Desmond would be _talking_ , explaining what he was here for or making stupid jokes. Today, he was absolutely, disturbingly silent, fidgeting and studying his hands where they were folded on the table in front of him. "Listen, Shay, I think we need to… I heard some stuff. About you. And about why you had to move here."

It was like a rock hitting Shay somewhere in the pit of his stomach, like every part of his insides freezing up at once. "You heard about the accident."

"Yea."

"Oh."

"A while ago, actually. I haven't been completely honest with you, Shay…" And then he looked away, as if considering what (or possibly how much) to say. "My brother is at Davenport. My father works there. I grew up there. Altair told me what happened to you, when you were… you know." He took a deep breath, but went on before Shay could point out that he was obviously still keeping _something_ back. And that worried him, because if Desmond was willing to come out and admit this much, how much worse was whatever he was still keeping back? It made him uneasy.

"Anyway," Desmond went on. "I talked to Altair again today. We sort of had an argument. About you. He thinks I'm an idiot for staying here, and being friends with you. I think you're not as bad as he says."

"Thanks." Shay frowned, because no other facial expression seemed possible at the moment. "I think."

"But I want- I need to hear what you think."

"I don't think I'm dangerous. I have this under control."

"I meant I want to hear your version of the accident, I guess. Please?" He leaned forward, suddenly looking Shay right in the eyes. His face was intense, his eyes boring into Shay's. "Because the one thing my brother said while we were arguing that actually made me _think_ is that you're always around Arno. And if I'm wrong about you being safe, that kid's in danger."

"You can't take Arno away," Shay said. "He's not yours to take, and Charles already knows what's… wrong with me."

"If I had to," Desmond said softly. "I would figure something out. I know he likes you the best out of anyone, maybe ever more than his father, but that doesn't means the rest of us don't want him safe too."

"Fine." Not fine. It was bad enough that he'd had to tell Haytham all this already, he didn't particularly want to have to tell Desmond now. "I don't see what good it will do, though, since you already know the whole story."

Desmond sighed. "Did anyone _ever_ ask you what happened, Shay?"

"Not until just recently," he admitted. "At the time, they decided I was an unreliable witness." Although 'they' in this case mostly meant one particular asshole, who had- "Wait a second," he said. "William Miles is your _father_?"

"Unfortunately."

"He wanted to have me locked up for study or killed!"

Desmond winced. "Please just tell me. I'm not my dad, I promise that whatever you say, this conversation is not going to end with me turning you in or trying to get you executed. And I really do want to believe you're okay. That's why I came over, really, I'm not trying to test you- and I'm sorry if it sounds like that. I just want to confirm what I already know. I just want to talk,"

"Then we'll talk," Shay said. He had to force the words out past lips that suddenly felt numb. Somehow, telling Desmond was worse than telling Haytham. It would have sucked to find another job, but friends (if that's what Desmond was) were harder to replace. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the memories he'd been doing so _well_ at blocking out. "If your brother's told you anything at all, he's probably already told you what we were trying to do," he began. "But it's important, so in case he left it out, what we were trying to do was find a way to reach other worlds. Alternate universes."

"But what exactly does that mean?" Desmond asked.

"It's… a world where something is different. Maybe it's something small, like one person somewhere turned left instead of turning right, and that made the worlds split into two different paths. Or maybe it was something big. Maybe in this world, you're a bartender, but there are other worlds where you're… I don't know. An accountant or a telemarketer or an opera star."

"Opera star," Desmond laughed. "Sure."

"I'm just saying," Shay insisted. "That's the whole point. These are other worlds, other _universes_. Things can get weird."

-/-

The project was kind of a big deal, and Shay was fully aware that the only reason he'd been asked to help with it was that his girlfriend had come up with the idea in the first place. Hope was basically a genius, as far as he was concerned, while he was about average at best. Hope just _understood_ magic, she always had. In school, while Shay was blowing off class or buried in books because there was an exam coming up and he was hopelessly behind (there was no middle ground), Hope was the one that only had to look at something once to remember it and understand it.

Which was part of the reason he doubted himself when he noticed there was something wrong. The early results had been predictable, reliably progressing along the path they had predicted before starting. It was nothing more than simple measurements at this point, checking to see how certain enchantments would affect energy levels while trying to reach other worlds. The thing was, lately they had been off the charts, literally so high that the computers they were using to track changes couldn't keep up with it.

Shay didn't mention what he'd noticed to any of the others. They were all better at this than he was, and if no one else thought there was a problem, maybe he was overreacting. But… but if he wasn't… it was better to check, probably, and that was how Shay came to be working well past midnight in the large room in the research tower that had been set aside just for their project. It was crowded with equipment, about half of which Shay actually knew how to use. Hope was slowly but surely helping him master the rest, but on this particular night he was alone and so he was careful to stay away from anything that might possibly be dangerous.

He had cleared a table in the middle of the room and set up his laptop to crunch some of the numbers, trying to understand why the energy had gone so far off the charts. He wasn't used to doing magic with the help of a computer, but in this case there were so many changing variables it was necessary to set something up just to keep track of them all. Shay opened up the previous day's results, put on some music, and resigned himself to reading through datasheets until he fell asleep from boredom or exhaustion.

Which was exactly what happened. He didn't remember dozing off, but the little clock on the corner of his computer screen read 1:32 when he woke again. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, slowly. Something was wrong, but he wasn't quite awake enough to figure out what it was. He blinked and rubbed at his face and suddenly jumped off his chair because he'd figured it out. It wasn't that _something_ was wrong, it was that _everything_ was wrong. Everything. He wasn't in the same room where he'd fallen asleep, he was in what looked like a high school chemistry lab. It looked entirely normal, complete with dirty blackboards on the walls and slightly lewd gravity scratched onto the lab tables.

Shay spun around, and the scene suddenly changed- he was in a cave somewhere, facing what looked like a dragon. The thing turned and looked at him, and Shay did the only thing his terrified brain could think of at the moment. He screamed (like a girl, Hope would have said), turned, and _ran_. But before he could make it more than a step or two he smacked into something solid like a wall, and heard a loud crash and then some kind of alarm. For a second he saw the tower room where he'd fallen asleep, and he tried to lunge toward it, but then it was gone and he was on a baseball field, wearing catcher's gear and whispering something against the roar of a crowd.

These were other worlds. The certainty crashed into him, washed through him, and allowed no doubt. Something (everything) had gone wrong, and he was trapped, being whipped from one world to another with a terrifying lack of control. There was nothing he could do, even if he knew how. There was no time to think, as he hurtled from world to world, between lives he never (but could have) lived.

He was underwater, trapped in layers of rubber and metal that were his only protection from the dangers of the ocean around him; he looked all around, and saw nothing but endless, chilling water. He was on a plane, leaning across an aisle of seats to shout pickup lines toward (his stomach lurched) this world's version of Hope, who was looking at him like she would look at a charming stranger. He was in bed with a woman, their bodies slick with sweat as they reached for each other in the darkness, and then he was in a hotel room with a man, on his knees and aching for more. He was in a tree with snow falling all around him, with a blade hidden beneath his sleeve, waiting impatiently for his target to walk past underneath. He was holding an infant in his arms, watching her tiny mouth move as she whispered sounds that meant nothing. He was, for a brief, confusing moment, a woman. He was on a ship, in a boardroom, on the streets, climbing a mountain, watching television, growing wings, planting a bomb, and on and on _and on and on-_

And now there was almost no gap between each new scene, so that he scarcely had time to process where he was before it was gone again, replaced by something else. But the scenes were crawling into his brain so that he found himself falling into whatever role he would have played in whatever world he found himself tumbling into and then out of. His body danced from one life to another, trying to catch up with everything he could see, jerking under the pressure each time he found himself somewhere and somewhen else. Emotions ripped through his mind like tidal waves, so that he went from laughing to sobbing to _bored_ out of his mind to nervous to scared until it all just blurred together into a numb wall of too much feeling that made him scream with the pain. But then he was in China, and the scream was stolen from his lungs and turned into the three sentences of polite Mandarin he had worked so hard to memorize on the flight over, and then he was down on one knee in a candle lit restaurant, whispering a proposal that almost stuck in his throat, and then he was jumping out of a plane, laughing with the sheer freedom of falling thousands of feet, laughing and laughing and laughing like he'd lost his mind.

The worlds began to overlap, and for a second or an eternity, Shay was himself again. He collapsed onto the ground, wherever in the vast multiverse of possibilities the ground was, and curled into a ball. There were tears in his eyes and an icy fist of terror clutching at his chest. Around him, millions of worlds existed all at once, overlapping, filling the same space so that just opening his eyes meant staring into a terrifying, infinite collection of possibilities, and _being_ a million versions of himself all at the same time.

"Stop…" he whispered. His voice was a hoarse croak, so weak it barely reached his own ears. It shouldn't have done anything, but somehow it did. Shay could feel a sharp shift in the air around him as he spoke, and reluctantly opened his eyes to see something more amazing than everything that had happened already. He saw it all gradually coming to a stop. One by one, the universes began pressing down, compressing into tight little balls of light that flashed and shone but no longer threatened to consume him. Shay stood, on legs like jelly, and stumbled toward the closest ball of light. It seemed to take ages to take the six steps necessary to reach it, and even longer to lift his arm up to touch the thing. It bumped softly against his palm, lighting the skin where it touched, and then passed through him and into him. Shay felt it expand inside his chest, a warm, living glow of energy. He stepped back, and bumped into a second ball. It passed through the skin on his back in much the same way as the first, and then there was the third against his knee, the fourth on the side of his head, and then all of them together at once, a long stream of worlds taking up space inside his body and mind. It should have been awful but when it was over, when the other worlds were safely stored inside him and only his own was left, he knew that he was home.

And that was the last thing he knew for a very long time, because that was when the blackness came rushing up to claim him, and he lost consciousness.

-/-

"Is-" Shay cleared his throat and managed to refocus on Desmond's face. The expression there was purposefully blank, somehow worse than even fear or anger would have been. "Is that what your brother told you?"

"Not in so many words," Desmond said. "He told me that some of the spells combined in a bad way, and you were working late for some reason. An alarm started going off, but by the time anyone else got there you were walking around the room, acting crazy. Which I guess sort of makes sense?"

"I could see all these other universes," Shay said dully. There had been so much work, so many questions and experiments and tests run on him to even figure out this much. "But I was the only one. So while my mind was in all these different places, everyone else just saw me running around and acting like I was in a million different places at once. Talking to people that weren't there, in languages I didn't know, trying to do things I had never done before or had no business doing then and there. And I didn't- I couldn't react to anyone else so… I can't blame them for thinking I was crazy. I sort of was. They put me in a hospital bed for over a month until we sort of figured out what had happened. Hope and Liam were there a lot, because they were my friends and they were working on the project with me. Until I screwed everything up and got it all shut down. But so was Achilles, and so was your dad. I hope you don't mind me telling you he was a complete dick the entire time."

"I've called him worse."

"Right. Well, he would come by at night, after everyone else was done with me, and just grill me with questions for hours until I wanted to hit him. I did, once, but that just made him worse the next night, so I never tried again. But he managed to get pretty much everything out of me, in the end. That satisfied him, and he finally stopped coming. Except I never told him or anyone else that all these universes were still inside me. I should have, but-" He put a shaking hand to his head, pressing hard as if that would push the mistake out of his memory. "I was stupid, _stupid_. I could feel them, can still feel them, actually, but I thought they were stuck inside me. I didn't think they could come out and hurt anyone else."

"They can, though?" It was half a statement and half a question, the way Desmond said it.

"Yea. See… as bad as that all was, it could have been a lot worse. This is just my own private theory, but I think me being there when everything went wrong kind of _tuned_ them into me, if that makes sense. Like… if all those universes were strings on a guitar, and so was I, we'd be playing in harmony. But if another string- somebody other than me, in this example- starts playing too, it all sounds wrong. It's off, and suddenly you're not playing music you're just making noise."

"What happened?" Desmond asked.

"You must already know," Shay said. "Everyone was talking about it when I left."

"I still want to know your point of view, remember," Desmond insisted.

And Shay nodded, because even as painful as it was, there was a part of him that wanted to explain. "Okay," he said at last. "But before you hear the rest, there's something you have to know about my ex-girlfriend. Before what I did to her, Hope used to be able to _smile_."

-/-

"Thank you for making them let me go," Shay said softly. He had spent six weeks inside a tiny, cramped hospital room, rarely even allowed to leave his bed. He had been poked and prodded and questioned until he felt like a piece of meat, and he was just tired of it all.

"They should have been done with you a week ago," Hope scoffed. An hour ago, she had showed up and shouted at Shay's doctors until they cowered in fear and almost pushed him out the door. They had come straight to the gardens, the most open place in the whole homestead. "It's mostly just Miles being an ass and thinking he's going to find out something else if he keeps asking you the same questions over and over again."

"Thanks, anyway. Are you going to get in trouble for that?"

She grinned at him. "Probably. But at this point, keeping you longer is absolutely ridiculous."

They sat for a little while, not saying anything. Shay had missed this kind of comfortable silence with Hope, and only broke it very reluctantly, after a long time. "What are you going to do next?" he asked. "I know the project that I ruined was your big chance." She had talked about nothing else for months before they were able to start.

"I'm going right back to the alternate universe project," Hope said. She laughed a little as she said it, as if to say, " _of course I am."_

"What?" Shay had been leaning back in the bench, with Hope curled against him and his arm around her shoulders. Now he scooted back and away from her as his heart started to race and his breath shortened into short, choking gasps. He'd never had a panic attack before, but it didn't take a genius to figure out he was having one now. "Hope, no, you can't, you _can't_ -"

"Calm down, Shay." She frowned and followed him across the bench, soothing him with her hands on his back and her lips on his forehead. "You don't have to be involved with this at all. What happened to you was bad and horrible and you have every right to want nothing to do with this anymore. But I _have_ to keep going. Your accident sucked but it's the proof we _need_ to know this can work! We can get to these other worlds, use them-"

"No!" He pushed her away and watched her smile vanish. "Hope, listen to me, I'm begging you. Don't do this."

"Calm down-"

"Don't tell me to calm down!" He hated being told to calm down. It was almost guaranteed to make things worse. "I'm trying to help you!"

"By keeping me from finishing this project?" She jumped to her feet and Shay followed her, shaking a little from anger and a little more from six weeks of enforced bedrest. "I'm not going to get another chance like this ever, Shay! It could-"

"It could do to you what it did to me!" Shay shouted.

"Screw you," she snarled, and slapped him. Her nails were long and sharp, perfectly manicured and painful where they hit his face. They left five thin scratches across his cheek, beads of blood pooling at the edges and running down his face. For a second they both stood there, frozen, knowing a mistake had been made but not quite sure how to go back.

And Shay was still angry, still furious that she would risk putting herself in the same kind of danger that had messed him up so badly and for so long. He wasn't thinking when he put a hand out to her chest to push her back, but that was when everything went wrong. He watched the little ball of light blossom under his fingers, watched it spread out and envelop Hope, and felt his anger instantly turn to fear.

"No," he whispered, but it was already too late.

-/-

"Shay?"

"Sorry." He got up and went to the sink, filling a glass with water as an excuse to turn his back to Desmond. He drank most of it and then rested his hands on the counter and stared at the window over the sink as he went back to talking. "There were 965,312 universes inside me before that, and 965,311 after I attacked Hope. Like I told you before, those universes were tuned to me. I survived my accident because the universes aligned themselves to me. But not to Hope. And she… when I blasted her with just _one_ universe, she went flying backwards, like she'd been shot. I ran over, I was so scared. She was writhing on the ground, screaming. She didn't stop, and eventually someone came over and pulled us away. They locked me up."

"Shay-"

"I deserved it. They told me what happened to her later. She saw things, things that as far as I know she still hasn't told anyone about. Eventually she passed out, and when they took her to the doctor-" the same doctor that had released Shay just that _morning_ , "they found bleeding in her brain. She would have died except that, lucky us, we happened to be in one of the most advanced magical research facilities in the country. They had the right potions on hand to save her."

"That's good, right?"

"Yea. Of course. But after that, I got a visit from your father. He explained exactly what was going to happen to me now that I'd proved I couldn't control myself. He said humans don't act like that, only animals, and so I deserved to be penned in and caged, like an _animal_ , he said that if I was lucky I could still be useful as a test subject. I waited until he left, and I ran the fuck away. I came here, and… well, you can figure out the rest, I'm sure."

"I can. And I understand why everyone is so afraid of you."

Shay winced, and then sighed as he heard Desmond get up from the table and walk over to him. "I didn't know," he said. "Until Hope, I didn't know I was _capable_ of hurting people like that." He'd seen a picture of her on Davenport's website a month or so ago. Back at work, but her skin was pale, her face stony, and she wasn't quite looking at the camera. He'd ruined her. "Now that I do, I will never, ever do that again."

"You were angry the day we first started talking," Desmond said skeptically. "You were ready to punch a guy over a grocery cart. That's why I started talking to you in the first place, you know? Altair told me all these stories about you, how you had a fight with your girlfriend and almost killed her and I thought… well, I better step in and make sure it doesn't happen again."

"I was angry," Shay admitted. "But I wouldn't have… I…" he sagged a little. "I might have. I don't know. I'll leave." He turned to Desmond, suddenly desperate. "I'll go far away, I'll leave the fucking country if you want. Just let me have a head start before you call your dad."

"Whoa!" Desmond shook his head. "First of all, calling my dad is never an option. And I'm not calling anyone in this case, okay? I said I can understand why everyone was afraid, but guess what?"

He actually stopped talking until Shay said "What."

"Your side of the story sucks! You didn't ask for any of this, and if it's anger that makes you hurt people, it seems to me like you need people around you that care about you more than you need to keep running and hiding. Stay, Shay. I mean, tell Gist what you just told me, and maybe tell Arno whatever you think he can handle, but if you go running off again you're only going to end up depressed and alone and angry."

"This is a trick," Shay said doubtfully. "There's no way-"

"I'm naturally inclined toward doing the opposite of whatever my dad would do," Desmond said with a small smile. "And I trust you."

"You do?"

"Yea. That's sort of the point of friends, Shay." He laughed and turned away to rummage through the kitchen cabinets. "Any chance friendship gets me breakfast? I'm starving."

Trust, Shay thought glumly. It was one thing for Desmond to trust him, but Shay wasn't entirely convinced Desmond was telling him everything. He remembered that moment of hesitation from when Desmond had first come over. But he didn't say any of that aloud. "Sure," he said. "I have cereal, and... toast."

"Five star cuisine," Desmond laughed. "And way better than my apartment."


	8. Chapter 8

Arno woke up really, _really_ early on his first day of school. He wanted to go see Shay before classes started, because he was so excited and if he was excited he wanted to tell Shay all about it. But he didn't want to be late, either, so after struggling with the times for a while he just got up really early and climbed out the window in the basement before anyone else could wake up.

It was still a little bit dark on the streets as Arno ran along them. He knew the way to Shay's apartment and his work by heart, but the timing was weird and he wasn't sure where Shay would be at this time of the morning. He walked a little farther, to the intersection that he would have to cross if he was going to Shay's apartment. If he was going to work, though, he would have to turn left.

"Eh…." He danced a little, back and forth from one foot to the other, head swiveling to the left and then back to looking straight ahead. "Hmm…" His nerves mounted, crawling up his spine as he tried to figure out what to do. His palms started to sweat, his breathing got faster, and his visions got worse. He frowned hard and tried to block out the pointless bits of strangers' futures. A few of them went away, but most of them were still there.

Something caught his eye a few feet away, one of the ghosty visions waving its arms and jumping up and down to get his attention. Which was _weird_ because it was the future, and- oh.

It was him. Arno broke out into a big smile at the sight of himself in the (very near) future. Sometimes being psychic was the most annoying thing ever, but then sometimes there were surprises like this one that made it all a little bit better. His future self smiled too and pointed to the left with his whole arm, then faded away and vanished.

Arno took off at a run, shoes slapping loudly against the pavement. He felt suddenly confident and excited again, sure that he was going in the right direction. The city lit up around him as he ran, and several times Arno just barely managed to avoid half-awake people making their way to work. It was definitely morning by the time he got to Shay's work, and the lobby was crowded with people just coming in for the day.

He avoided most of the crowds and skirted around the edge of the room to get to Gist. The man seemed really busy, so Arno just climbed up onto the empty chair and waited until Gist noticed him. Eventually he flicked Arno on the ear and gave the swivel chair a little push.

"Hey!" Arno protested. "Teasing!"

Gist smiled absently and went back to watching the last of the morning rush pass by on their way upstairs. "If you're here to see Shay, he's not here yet."

"What?" The chair finally stopped spinning and Arno tilted his head up to frown at Gist. "But I told me to come here!"

"Um…" Gist raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "Well, I'm sure he's just running a little bit late. He'll be here soon, okay?"

"Okay," Arno said. "But I gotta go home soon. It's my first day of school!"

"Yea? That's exciting. What school are you going to?"

"I dunno. Daddy didn't tell me yet."

"Well, I'm sure it'll be great no matter where it is. And you'll come by after and tell us all about it, right kid?"

"Duh! But… I wanted to see Shay."

"Then you're in luck," Gist said, and Arno looked up at the door just in time to see Shay come in with some old guy. Arno ignored the stranger, jumped off the chair and dived under Gist's desk because it was faster.

"Shay!" he shouted, and slowed down before hitting Shay's legs because he knew Shay didn't like how it made him almost fall over. "See? I remembered this time!"

"Shh, Arno-" Shay picked him up, grunting a little at the effort (because Arno was getting _big,_ he was _five_ now), but he was paying more attention to the old guy than Arno. "I'm sorry," he apologized.

"Don't be," the man said, waving a lazy hand dismissively. He was looking at Arno with obvious interest, so Arno took the opportunity to study him right back. "You should consider yourself lucky to have his attention. That doesn't last forever, you know."

"Why do you have a ponytail?" Arno asked, before Shay could say anything. "Those are for _girls_."

Shay turned bright red but the other man laughed. "They're also for people too busy to get their hair cut," he said. "And some women like it."

"So?"

"You'll appreciate that in about ten years," Shay promised, which made Arno wrinkle up his nose. Who cared what girls thought?

"Okay," he said, ready for this conversation to be over. "You can keep your hair."

"Thank you, Arno," the man said. He sounded very serious, like Arno was worth listening to and not just a silly kid.

"How did you know my name?" Arno asked, and the old guy pointed at Shay.

"He talks about you all the time," the old guy said, and Arno frowned a little.

"He doesn't talk about you at all," he said.

"This is Haytham Kenway," Shay explained. "My boss."

"Hi." But Arno wasn't very interested in Shay's boss right now. "Shay," he said, twisting around a little to look at him. "I have school this morning."

"You do?"

"Yea! It's my first day. It's going to be great, and I'm going to make friends, and I'm going to get to play with other kids-"

"Breathe," Shay reminded him, and Arno paused just long enough to suck in a sharp breath.

"And daddy doesn't let me play with other kids because he says I have to be careful because I can see the future."

"Well then why are you here?" Shay laughed. "You're going to be late."

"I don't wanna be late!" He squirmed out of Shay's arms and dropped to the ground. "I wanted to see you first though. And I wanna come see you after school, too! Okay?"

"Any time," Shay said. "You know that."

Arno hugged him briefly and ran out of the doors. He didn't stop running until he got back to the intersection where he'd seen the vision of himself earlier, and then stopped just long enough to do some jumping and pointing. Otherwise him in the past wouldn't be able to see him in the future telling him which way to go, and then how would he know where to go? It made his head hurt.

After that, he ran the rest of the way home. He climbed back through the window and dropped onto the couch right before his daddy came in, half dressed for work. "Arno," he said. "What are you doing down here?"

"Um…" he needed to start thinking up better reasons to be down here on the couch. His daddy was really smart, even if he wasn't home a lot, and he was going to figure out how Arno was sneaking out eventually. "Just getting ready for school."

"Good. Your tutor's waiting upstairs."

"What..." The sick, squirmy feeling inside him that told him something was about to go wrong had nothing to do with being psychic and everything to do with his daddy doing _this_ again and again. Doing it wrong, making him sad. "What's a tutor?"

"It's a special kind of teacher," his daddy explained. "He's going to come to the house and teach you everything you would learn if you were going to a regular school."

"But… do other kids come here too?"

"No other kids," his daddy said. "It's just going to be you, so he can pay _special_ attention to you, and help you learn better." He crouched down over the couch, and put his hand on Arno's arm. "It's going to be really exciting, Arno. I promise. If you were in school, you would have to learn at the same speed as everyone else. But I know you're really smart. You can learn fast, and you can choose the kind of things you want to learn about. Skip all the boring stuff." He smiled like this was supposed to be a good thing.

But Arno didn't care about learning. He didn't want to go to school to _learn_ stuff, he just wanted to meet other kids and make friends and it wasn't fair! He wiped his face because it was wet, and was angry when he realized he was crying. "I hate you!" he shouted. "You don't even love me, you just want to be mean all the time!"

"No, Arno-"

He didn't want to listen to anything. He ran upstairs, past a stranger that was probably the stupid tutor, and into his bedroom. Inside, he closed the door and pulled all the blankets and pillows off his bed. His door didn't lock, but with all the stuff from his bed piled on the floor in front of the door it would be a lot harder to open. Arno crawled under the bed and shoved his hands over his ears so he wouldn't hear his daddy when he came up to talk to him.

-/-

Shay liked his new job.

He'd never expected to go back to research after the disaster at Davenport that had ruined everything he'd worked for in his life up until that point. It was safer and easier to stick to the familiar, even if the enchantments he'd been hired to work here were dull as dishwater. Haytham had managed to change his mind completely, something Shay had definitely not been expecting. For one thing, the work he was doing now had nothing to do with the other universes trapped inside him. The offer was always there, ready if Shay ever wanted to take it up, but without the pressure he would have felt anywhere else. Maybe someday, he would want to know more about what was going on with him. There was probably a lot they could learn from the accident, when he finally worked up the courage to go down that path.

But not just now. At the moment, he was happy enough with his current project. The subject (how magic was passed on from parent to child) was interesting, the other members of the team were courteous and maintained a professional distance, and he got out earlier than he had while working on the fifth floor. Overall, it was as good a job as he had ever had before, and normally he didn't have any trouble keeping his mind on his tasks. Usually.

As the morning wore on slowly into early afternoon, and then into evening, Shay found himself struggling to get anything done at all. Arno had mentioned coming back to see him after school, and so far there had been no sign of him. He never went back on his promise. Not to Shay. Of course, this wasn't exactly a normal day. There were a hundred explanations (probably) for why Arno hadn't come by. Maybe he'd made friends already, and was with them. Maybe he was with his dad. (Maybe he was sick or hurt or worse).

This was a new part of his relationship with Arno, one that Shay didn't like much. He had wasted plenty of his life worrying about one thing or another, but this was a completely new brand of worry that he wasn't ready for. It ate at his mind, pulling at his thoughts, dragging them down like a heavy weight in a river. He couldn't concentrate on anything else, and he wondered if this was how parents had to feel _all the time_. For maybe the first time, he legitimately felt for Charles. Arno seemed to view running away from home as something between a God given right and a biological necessity, and it had to be unbelievably stressful for Charles to never actually know where his son was.

He headed out as soon as he felt he could do so without seeming rude, but took the time to stop by the security booth to talk to Gist. He opened his mouth, but didn't quite manage to get any words out before the other man started talking.

"I'm sure he's fine."

"What?"

Gist scoffed. "Please," he said. "Of course you were going to ask about Arno. And he never said for sure he would be back this afternoon. He's probably just overtired from getting up early this morning and finally starting school."

"You're probably right," Shay said. "It's not wrong to worry about him, is it?"

"Someone has to worry," Gist said. "God knows that father of his isn't doing enough of it. Don't get me wrong, I like having him around. He's a cute kid, and you're good for him. Almost as good as he is for you. And I know he wouldn't be coming around at all if his father was at all responsible, so technically it's a stroke of luck for us, but…" He shrugged. "Anyway. I guess my point is, Arno's lucky to have you looking out for him."

"You're right." Shay smiled as (most of) his worry began to drop away from his mind, shedding like a snake crawling out of its skin. "Thanks, Gist."

"Anytime." He pointed at his chair. "Now sit down because I need to tell you something."

"Really?" Shay sighed but sat. "What's gone wrong now?"

"Nothing. I just-" But Gist certainly looked like something was wrong, eyes fixed on the ground, running his fingers through his hair. Or trying to. He'd complained half a hundred times to Shay already about the dress requirements here that kept his hair cut short and close to his head. "Listen, Shay. This job was only supposed to be temporary. I'm not a security guard, I never have been. It's dull. I don't like it. I want to travel again, see the world, have adventures."

"So…" it was obvious what Gist was trying to lead into, but Shay didn't want to believe it, and that made his brain slow. "What are you saying?" he asked, on the off chance that somehow he was wrong.

"I'm saying… it's time for me to go."

That was exactly what Shay had expected. He worked hard to keep his expression stony, because he was a full grown man damnit, and he wasn't going to get all emotional. Even if one of his only two friends in the world (and the only one that hadn't been lying to them since they first met) was about to leave. "Where are you going?"

"Off the coast of South America," Gist said. "Some professor from some fancy school got it into his head that Atlantis might have sunk there, and he's looking for guards. I signed on for that. It's a twelve month expedition, longer if we find the city." He rolled his eyes. "Which we won't. People have been looking for Atlantis for centuries now, they're never going to find it."

"So at least a year," Shay said. "I'm going to miss you."

"Same. But I'll be back. For a while at least, after it's all over. I usually need a break after one of these things. And I'll call, occasionally. It'll be fine."

"Phones work underwater?"

"Special enchantments," Gist said. "They're pulling out all the stops, it's going to be _really_ incredible." It would have to be. Magic and tech famously didn't get along, and there had been serious lawsuits in the past when people tried to combine the two. Whoever was running this trip must have spread some serious cash around to make everyone happy. Gist went on. "Even if we don't find anything, it'll still be worth going. And anyway, there's always sea monsters and mermaids, so that will make things interesting."

"Mermaids?"

"The little bastards can bite!" Gist said, with such an air of offended pride that Shay couldn't help laughing a little. "I had a friend once that lost a whole leg to a mermaid. Vicious. But beautiful, as long as you remember the danger. A little like the sea, I suppose."

"I know what you mean."

"I've always thought I was born in the wrong time," Gist said thoughtfully. "If I was born a couple centuries earlier, I could have been a ship's captain. Or a first mate- something. I could have traveled all over, hunting pirates, maybe."

"Sure," Shay said. "But personally, I'm glad you were born in this time, or you wouldn't have been here when I needed you."

"And _now_ this is getting sappy." Gist pulled Shay to his feet and clapped him on the back. "I'm off at half past eight, we can go get a drink or something."

-/-

"Shay?" Gist said later (much later) that night, when they were pleasantly buzzed and wandering the darkened streets of the city. It was quiet here, in this neighborhood, at this time of the night. There might as well have been no one in the world but the two of them.

"Yea?"

"Send me pictures," Gist said. "Of Arno. At his age, he's going to do nothing but grow in the next twelve months. I won't recognize him when I come back."

"Course I will," Shay said.

"And Shay?"

"Hmm?"

"Don't let his dad mess him up too much. I don't think he cares as much about Arno as he should. Make sure the kid knows that _someone_ does."

-/-

Desmond crawled his way back into Altair's mind, creeping and sneaking because they were fighting and he didn't know how to apologize. It should have been easy. They'd certainly fought enough over the years, but those had all been stupid disagreements about things that didn't really matter. The closest they had ever come to a fight like this had been the day Desmond decided to leave Davenport and go out on his own, but at least Altair had understood the reasons behind that. He had _met_ William Miles, after all.

But it was becoming increasingly obvious that they were not going to agree about Shay. Desmond had almost hoped that talking to Shay would convince him Altair was right, but it _hadn't_. The whole thing had been a stupid accident that was going to follow Shay through the rest of his life, and Desmond didn't think that was a good enough reason to condemn him to a life alone.

Which didn't do anything to help him figure out what to say to Altair. Because he missed his brother, and this fighting thing sucked.

 _"We don't have to talk about it."_

He smiled at the familiar voice in his head, and leaned back into the hollow on his couch, the well-worn valley gradually molded to his shape from years' of use. _"Are you okay with that?"_

 _"Better than this. Ignoring each other. You sneaking into my head like you think I won't notice."_

 _"I can be sneaky. If I want to."_

But not with Altair, who knew him better than anyone, and he wasn't at all offended when Altair started to laugh. _"I… trust you, Desmond_ ," Altair said, when they had gone silent again. _"If you like him, I guess I can trust you to keep yourself safe. Just don't ask me to like him."_

 _"You don't like anyone."_

 _"I like you."_

There were good things about family, Desmond decided as they settled into an easy, familiar pattern of conversation and silences. After a while, he said, _"You should come out here sometime. It's been too long since we saw each other."_

 _"It has been a long time. I might not recognize you."_

 _"Says the guy who literally looks just like me. Come on, Altair. I know you have a life you're happy with there. I'm not asking you to move permanently. Just come here and visit for a while."_

 _"Yea," Altair said after a too long pause. "But maybe we stay away from Shay while I'm out there, okay?"_

 _"Right,"_ Desmond snorted. _"Because I_ wanted _another argument. When can you come?"_

 _"Over break,"_ Altair said. _"I'm still stuck teaching this year."_

 _"Ouch. Any horror stories this year?"_

 _"The usual. The preteens are starting to figure out kissing exists. The older teens are thinking about sex. The younger kids just want their parents. And one of them peed in class last week."_

 _"Well, if that's the worst of it-"_

 _"Oh no."_ Altair's voice in Desmond's mind had taken on an aggravated tone, and the words came spilling out like he'd been waiting too long to tell all this to someone. _"I haven't even gotten to the worst part. There's this one kid, he's new this year, and I swear he was put on this Earth specifically to make me suffer."_

 _"What? What's he doing?"_

 _"Everything he can think of to make my life difficult! This kid might possible be a demon."_

 _"So… he's a transfer? How old?"_

 _"Not a transfer, actually, but-"_

 _"You said he was new."_

 _"He's… in the first grade."_

And Desmond laughed so hard he almost fell off the couch. He cackled like a madman, and even Altair's increasingly annoyed protests weren't enough to make him stop. It was only when he finally ran out of air and his laughter turned to wheezing that he stopped. _"You're being terrorized by a six year old?"_

 _"Ye- no! No, I'm not being terrorized. Just sort of…"_ he groaned and Desmond smiled. _"You're never going to let me live this down, are you?"_

 _"Probably not,"_ Desmond said, and the conversation turned gradually to other topics. It lasted for hours, even when Desmond eventually had to get off the couch and go run some errands. In the old days, before the slow drifting apart and then the argument about Shay, Altair's voice had been a constant presence in the back of his mind that kept him from ever getting lonely. It was good to see life getting back to that again.


	9. Chapter 9

There was a man sitting on the steps of Arno's house when Shay got there. It was early afternoon, halfway through Shay's late lunch break, and despite half knowing it was a bad idea, he had come by to check on the kid. It had been over a week since Arno hadn't come back from his first day of school. Since then, Shay hadn't seen him at all, and despite telling himself over and over again that it was none of his business, Shay found himself _here_.

…and face to face with a stranger.

The man was a good three inches taller than Shay when he stood up and stuck out his hand, but the way he smiled made him seem smaller. "Hi," Shay said, shaking his hand cautiously. "Are you- what are you doing here?"

"You're Shay, aren't you?" The man asked. His hair was bright blonde, yellow as a lightbulb, like a cartoon character. "I heard Arno mention you."

Shit. Shay wasted approximately three seconds wondering if he'd been replaced before reminding himself that was _stupid_ (but was it, really, because how long had he known Arno anyway?). There were other concerns at the moment. "So he's okay?"

"Of course. The boy is fine." The yellow haired stranger finally let go of Shay's hand, which at least made things a little less awkward. "More than a little upset, but physically fine."

"Why is he upset?" Shay asked. "And who are you?"

"I'm the tutor." The man offered Shay a theatrical half bow that would have looked ridiculous from anyone else. This guy made it work. "Leonardo. And that's an answer to both questions, by the way."

It didn't take long for the connection to click in Shay's mind. "He wanted to _go_ to school," he said. "He didn't want the school to come to him."

"Exactly. So, right now I'm being paid to sit around for six hours a day until Arno decides he's ready for school."

"That's never going to happen," Shay said. "This is a kid that climbs out the window and runs away instead of facing his problems. What does his father have to say about this?"

"I imagine he would have a lot to say if he were in the country," Leonardo said. "He left for Egypt three days ago and hasn't been in contact since."

"Typical," Shay spat. "That's just absolutely _typical_."

"Is it?" Leonardo asked. "That's disappointing. I expected more out of this man. He could have made a fortune when he found a way to turn lead into gold. He could have kept the secret to himself and made a fortune. Instead, he made it public knowledge right away. Never even filed a patent."

"I believe the government did that on his behalf," Shay said dismissively. "It's not exactly helping the greater good of humanity."

"Well, of course not." Leonardo waved a dismissive hand. "If gold suddenly became that freely available, it would destroy the world economy. It would be irresponsible for the government to allow people free access, but an individual wouldn't necessarily think things through that far. The only reason not to file a patent is to try and help people, by giving them access to money they've never had before. It's an action that shows great faith in and regard for the human race. Idealistic, if economically unsound."

"You sound like you've given this a lot of thought."

"I haven't had much else to do in the past few days."

"That sounds a lot like Charlies," Shay agreed eventually, after giving this some thought. "Good intentions, poor execution. He tries to be a good person, a good father. He came and asked me to help with Arno because he believed it was best for his son, even though it's going to hurt him in the long run. But he goes off all over the world and leaves Arno behind."

"Do you know what he's doing when he leaves?" Leonardo asked. "Just out of curiosity."

"No idea," Shay said. "We don't talk much."

"Finding spells designed to turn useless materials into food and water. Dirt. Rocks. Sand."

"Solving world hunger," Shay said, laughing without humor. "Idealistic."

"And that is why I took this job," Leonardo said. "Because even if he ends up doing nothing but hurting the people around him, he's trying to make the world a better place. I think people like that deserve respect. And that's why I'm staying, although I'm not as optimistic as Charles was before he left that Arno is going to 'come around on his own'."

"He won't," Shay said, with absolute certainty.

"Let's go for a walk," Leonardo said, beckoning Shay down the sidewalk. "We need to have a conversation."

"I thought that's what we were just doing," Shay said, but he followed Leonardo anyway.

"I usually try to look at the student first when I figure out how to teach them," Leonardo said. "Not only the subjects and level of difficulty, but the environment as well. In this case, there are two specific suggestions I want to get your approval on."

"Why my approval? Shouldn't Charles-"

"He's out of contact," Leonardo said. "And while I would love to get his opinion on this, I'll settle for the man Arno seems to care about."

A few months ago, he hadn't known Arno existed. Somehow he had gone from that, to making decisions about his educational future. And he liked the change. "Sure. Why not?"

"Alright," Leonardo said. "My first recommendation is a compromise between what Arno wants and what his father wants. Charles has good reasons to limit Arno's contact with other people. As usual, good intentions but poor implementation. If he's around too many other people, especially at this age, there's a good chance he'll eventually end up telling someone the wrong thing or seeing something that makes him overreact. But being isolated from other kids his age _will_ hurt his psychological development. I've contacted a few of the people Charles works with, and one of them told me he has a daughter, Elise, almost the same age as Arno. Bringing her in will hopefully make Arno happy without overwhelming him."

"Seems like a fair compromise to me," Shay said. "And I think it was a nice touch, talking to the people Charles works with."

"He's less likely to fire me for going behind his back," Leonardo laughed.

"What's the second suggestion?"

"Giving him controlled access to someone else his age is like… treating the symptoms of a disease instead of the cause. To get him to a place where he can be trusted around other people, he needs to learn how to deal with his visions."

"How?"

"By bringing in another instructor. Someone that understands exactly what he's going through."

"Another psychic," Shay said. "Is that a good idea?"

"I think it is." Leonardo started counting off points on his fingers. "There are thirteen psychics alive today. One of them is Arno, of course. Four other are either under the age of twenty or over the age of sixty five. Too young for what we need or old enough to be enjoying retirement. Two others have dropped completely off the radar. One is in prison for murder, another is in a mental institution, one is working with NASA making $150,000 a year and won't be looking for a career change, one only speaks Portuguese, and one said no when I asked."

"That still leaves one more," Shay said.

"Ezio Auditore," Leonardo said. "Twenty seven years old, no criminal record, and he seemed interested when we talked on the phone."

"The name sounds Spanish."

"Italian," Leonardo corrected. "Lived there most of his life but moved here about eighteen months ago."

"What does he do for a living now?"

"Unemployed," Leonardo said. "Between jobs, which I assume is why he's willing to come here. From what he told me, he's a bit of a drifter. He hasn't held down a job for longer than three months in his entire life."

"So what makes you think he'll be any help with Arno?"

"Because he's our only option," Leonardo said. "And because he's not only a very good psychic, he's also very eager to come here."

"How do you know that just from a phone conversation?"

"Because I didn't call him," Leonardo said. "He called me. From an airport. About to get on a plane to come here."

-/-

There were days when Altair thought teaching was going to put him off ever having children. They made him nervous, especially the little ones. He didn't like it when they stared at him, and he didn't like it when they shouted at each other and ignored him. Individually, they were decent enough (usually), but get enough of them together, and they turned into a horde of untameably mad things.

But Altair had never had a problem child like the one in his first grade class this year. It was less than a week into classes, and already this particular boy, a new kid this year, had made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in being anywhere near Altair. He talked back in class. He rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath and always somehow did _just_ enough to avoid getting into actual trouble, without ever showing Altair the slightest bit of respect.

Altair had had enough. He was tired of being treated like the dirt on the bottom of a pair of shoes, and clearly _something_ had to be done. On Friday afternoon, while the rest of the class was pushing at one another to get to the door (and freedom) first, Altair called the boy to the front of the classroom to have a much needed conversation.

The boy looked at him sideways through the too long shag of his hair, as if judging Altair and his request to make sure it was worthy of his time. Altair stared back, his eyes narrowing into a glare when the boy did not immediately respond. Finally, the boy made a great show of abandoning his books on his desk, where they thumped loudly, before walking slowly to Altair's desk.

For a moment, Altair simply studied him in silence, trying to figure out the best approach to take here. The boy was small, even compared to the others in his class, but he had stopped far enough back from the desk that he didn't have to turn his head up quite as far to look Altair in the eye. His hair was dark, black or a very deep brown, and it badly needed a cut. It was shaggy and uneven, hiding his eyes and most of his face. It wasn't an unusual look among the younger students, six and seven year olds that weren't used to looking after themselves and keeping track of things like regular haircuts. He didn't seem to have fallen into any of the other common traps of his classmates, however. His school uniform (while looking distinctly worn, probably second hand) was clean, and he didn't look like he'd been under- or overeating. He-

"Excuse me, sir, but why do we have to take this class?"

"What?" Altair had not expected the boy to speak first, and it threw him more than he wanted it to.

"Your class," the boy said. He spoke slowly, as if he were the instructor and Altair the student. "History. What good is that ever going to be to magic?"

"Not everything you learn in school is about magic," Altair said. "You also take math and English, don't you?"

"Those are basic skills," the boy argued. "How are we supposed to communicate without English? And math should be taught. You need it for all kinds of things."

"So math and English, those are helpful, but not history?"

The boy smiled a little. _At_ Altair, not with him. "No sir," he agreed. "Not history."

"I enjoyed history when I was in school," Altair said. "It's full of incredible stories and people. The past is the only thing I've ever known that's any good at all at explaining the present."

The boy looked entirely unimpressed by this. "It still seems useless," he said. "Is that why they put _you_ in charge of the class?"

"How old are you?" Altair asked. He didn't think he'd ever come across a first grader with quite this level of concentrated malice before.

"Six."

"Fine," Altair snapped. "Then let's just assume for the moment that you have no idea what you're talking about, because you're an immature brat with no life experience and an overinflated opinion of yourself."

"I'm not the one throwing a temper tantrum," the boy said, in a voice of absolute calm. "I am sanguine."

"You're six and you know the word sanguine?"

"I _read_ ," the boy said, and Altair wished (briefly) that the kid were older and it was acceptable to hit him right in the face, and the fact that he was intelligent enough to not only know a word like sanguine but to use it (correctly) in conversation ticked Altair off more, somehow. His condescending tone alone was asking for it. When Altair, distracted by his violent fantasies, didn't answer right away, the boy turned and took several steps away from the desk.

"Wait," Altair said. "I didn't tell you to wait after class because I wanted to hear your opinions on my teaching."

"What _did_ you want, then?" The boy crouched over his desk to pile his things back into his bag. The sight of his schoolbooks (brightly colored with little words in big font) and other supplies (a box of crayons, a lunchbox with Spiderman on the side) should have undermined the casually dismissive tone of the boy's words. Somehow, they didn't quite manage it.

"What did I do to you?" he asked. "Obviously you think I've done something. I've asked around, and none of the other teachers have anything negative to say. Most of them tell me you're a star pupil. So what did _I_ do?"

He knew at once that he had gotten it right. The boy's eyes flashed in sudden anger, and he tightened his grip on his bag. "That's in the past," he said flatly. "I already told you history is boring. Why waste time going back over it?" And without another word, he turned and headed for the door.

Altair got to his feet, and in three quick steps managed to catch the boy before he could quite get to the door. " _Malik,_ " he said, and his voice was caught somewhere between an angry growl and a frustrated sigh. "If you won't tell me what I've done that is apparently so unforgivable, at least have the common decency not to act like an ass in my classroom." The boy flinched a little, but Altair carried right on regardless. "Behave yourself, or there will be consequences."

But Malik only said "Sir," (which could have meant anything), and ducked under Altair's arm to escape into the hallway.

-/-

Arno hadn't been planning to come out of his room ever again (except to go to the bathroom and sneak food out of the kitchen). He spent eight whole days hiding in there, angry and sad and more and more bored. On the seventh day, Shay came by the house. Arno watched from the window until he saw Shay walk away with the stupid tutor. He came inside a while later, but Arno still didn't want to talk to _anyone_ , not even Shay, and he ignored Shay until he went away again.

On the day after that, Shay came back. He didn't ask to be let into Arno's room this time, just forced the door open, ignoring the mess on the floor, and stepped around it all until he saw Arno under the bed. Arno was curled up with his back to the wall and his arms wrapped around his knees, and he frowned at Shay when he bent down to look him in the eye.

Arno looked at him hopefully. It had been a lonely eight days, and he wanted to talk to someone. He wanted someone to hold him and tell him it was all going to be okay. Because he had suffered and been lonely and eaten nothing but cheese sticks and cereal for ten whole days.

"What are you doing, Arno?" Shay asked, and he didn't sound like everything was going to be okay, he sounded _disappointed_. "Huh? You're better than this."

"Daddy said I could go to school," Arno said. His voice sounded funny in his ears after (ten whole) days without saying anything. "And then he said no." Shay was still frowning at him, and the silence was hard to understand. "It's his fault!"

"No, Arno." He waved at Arno to come out from under the bed, but Arno shook his head and didn't move. Shay narrowed his eyes and spoke a little more sharply. "Come here," he said, and the iron in his voice was enough that Arno started moving before his brain could stop him from moving. When he was fully out from under the bed, Shay caught him under the arms and lifted him onto the little orange chair next to the table where he sometimes colored and played with legos. Shay sat cross legged in front of him, which put them at about the same level.

Arno counted under his breath, to see how long it would be before Shay said something. He started squirming at seven, and stopped counting when he got to nineteen and couldn't remember what came next (ten-teen didn't sound right). "Why are you mad at me?" he blurted. "I didn't do anything wrong!"

"First of all," Shay said. "I'm not angry. I'm disappointed."

"What does that mean?"

"It means… you're five years old now, Arno. You're not a baby anymore, but right now you're _acting_ like a baby."

"No!" Arno protested. "I'm not a baby!"

"Then don't act like one," Shay said. "As soon as something happened that you didn't like, you stopped caring about anyone else. You're usually a lot better than that. How did you feel when you came up here?"

"Sad," Arno sad. "Angry. Daddy _lied_ to me."

"Really," Shay said. "Do you think he did it on purpose? Do you think he wanted to make you sad, or angry?"

Arno wiggled back and forth on his chair. "No," he admitted.

"No," Shay agreed. "Your daddy isn't perfect, because nobody is. But he still loves you, do you believe that?"

"Yes," he whispered. "But he still made me sad."

"Do you know what your tutor told me?" Shay asked. Arno shook his head. "He said that he heard you tell your daddy that you hate him, and that he didn't love you." Arno frowned and looked down at his fingers, because looking at Shay was suddenly really hard. "How do you think that made your daddy feel?"

Arno shrugged, and his eyes started to water. "Sad," he said.

"What about when you came up here?" Shay went on. "And you wouldn't come out? Did you talk to him about what happened? Did you say goodbye to him before he left?" Arno shook his head. "How did _that_ make him feel, do you think?"

"Sad," Arno said again. Or tried to say, because as soon as he opened his mouth the word turned into a kind of wet, hiccupy sob. That was when Shay finally got up and put his arm around him. Arno got off the chair and leaned into him, burying his face in Shay's chest until every breath was full of familiar smells. Shay let him cry until he ran out of tears, and then he said, "Are you going to do this again?"

"No way!"

"That's what I wanted to hear," Shay said. "So what are you going to do the next time someone makes you sad?"

"I don't know? Um…" He thought about it hard. "Talk to them."

"That's a good idea. If you don't like something that happens, you should always talk to them before you get upset."

"Yea?"

Shay nodded. "And what are you going to do now?"

"Um…"

"First," Shay said. "You're going to come downstairs, and we're going to eat something that's not cereal or cheese." He pointed to the mess Arno had left in the corner of his room. "That's not healthy."

Arno's stomach made a funny noise, and he nodded. "Okay."

"Then we're going to come back up here, and clean your whole room."

He nodded again, less happily this time.

"Third," Shay went on. "You're going to go to sleep early. I sent your nanny home, so I'm going to stay here with you tonight."

"Really?"

"Yes. But you still have to get a good night's sleep because early tomorrow morning, your nanny and your tutor are both going to come back, and you need to say sorry to them. Do you think you can do that?"

"Yes," Arno whispered. "And when daddy comes home, I should say sorry to him too, right?"

"That's a really good idea," Shay said, which made Arno feel a little bit happier.

"Do I still have to have the tutor instead of going to school?"

"Yes," Shay said. "That's what your daddy wants. But if you talk to him when he comes back, I'm sure he would be happy to explain why."

"Oh."

"But in the meantime," Shay went on, "I've been talking to your tutor, and he thinks it's kind of silly for him to come all the way out here to teach just one kid."

"It _is_ silly," Arno huffed.

"He thinks maybe two kids would be better. What do you think?"

It took Arno a little while to get it, because he was the only kid here and he couldn't be two people at once, but then he got it. "Oh! Someone's coming here?"

"Yep."

"Really? Really really really?"

"All the reallys."

"I'm gonna have a friend!" Arno shouted at the top of his lungs.


	10. Chapter 10

Shay stayed at the Dorian house just long enough in the morning to introduce Arno to Leonardo and hear the boy's earnest attempt at an apology. Then he left them to get to know each other while he went to pick Ezio up from his hotel. Elise was with her parents, visiting family somewhere in France, and wouldn't be back until the next week, but Ezio was ready to come in right away.

The hotel was pretty middle of the road. It wasn't a fleapit motel, but it wasn't going to break the bank either. Shay spent five minutes standing in the parking lot trying to decide what to do before he finally shook his head and headed toward the door. No use planning for something he had no idea what to expect.

Psychics. Everyone knew about them, but very few people _knew_ them. They were legends, rarer than unicorns and krakens and even dragons. (Shay had seen a dragon, once, when he was fifteen, on a school field trip. They'd ridden a bus for ten hours to get to the conservation center and then the dragon hadn't even been awake. One of the older guys had thrown something at it and been suspended for a month and a half). So little was known about psychics that until about forty years ago, many people had believed they weren't technically human at all. Some people feared them, others hated them, and still others treated them as rock stars or minor deities.

And now Shay was about to meet one of them. It wasn't like he really believed there was anything superhuman about psychics, especially not after meeting Arno. But growing up in a world where everyone you met _looked_ at you like that had to change a person. He had no idea what to expect from this Ezio guy.

Shay got to the front door of the hotel at the same moment that a tall man with a tan complexion, wearing tinted sunglasses, approached from the other side. Shay stepped absentmindedly to the side, not fully ready to go inside yet, and was surprised when the other man stopped in front of Shay and held out his hand. Shay stared at it, then looked up at the man's face.

"I'm Ezio," the man said. There was a thick trace of Italian in his voice, but he was still fairly easy to understand. "You're looking for me."

"I am," Shay said, surprised. Ezio grinned and pulled off the glasses, revealing bright blue eyes, the exact same shade as Arno's. There were only thirteen people in the world with eyes that specific shade of blue. "So… why don't you tell me your story?"

"Sure," Ezio said. "Where do you want to start?"

Before he could answer, a very annoyed woman dragging two suitcases behind her cleared her throat loudly and glared at the two of them until they moved out of the way to sit on a cold metal bench next to the door. Ezio smiled at her, and she scowled at him for just a moment before noticing his eyes. She went pale and hurried through the doors so quickly she almost lost control of her bags. Ezio turned back to Shay, apparently unfazed.

"Why are you so eager to be here?" Shay asked. There was an armrest on the bench between the two of them, an awkward fixture put there to keep the homeless from sleeping there overnight. Normally that kind of holier than thou attitude annoyed Shay, but today it afforded just the right amount of separation from a man he still wasn't entirely sure he trusted.

"I wouldn't say eager, exactly," Ezio said.

"Leonardo told me you were already on the way before he even asked," Shay said. "That sounds eager to me."

"It wasn't exactly like that," Ezio said. "I'm psychic."

"Which explains nothing," Shay said impatiently. "Continue."

"Two months ago," Ezio began. "I was working as a waiter in this nice place on the California coast. Decent job, but people were starting to look at me funny. It always happens eventually, and I started to think about moving on. But like most people, I don't like looking for new jobs. It's no fun. So my usual strategy is to check out the future until I find out where I'm going for my next job. It's a great strategy, because I only have to apply for jobs I already know I'm going to be hired at."

"And you saw yourself here?"

"Yes," Ezio said simply. "It surprised me, too, but here we are."

"Here we are," Shay agreed. "But why can't you just… not do what you see? If you're in a job you don't like or don't want, can't you just go somewhere else and avoid the whole thing?"

"Sure," Ezio said. "If I want to waste a whole lot of time and effort on it. What do you know about alternate universes?"

"Some," Shay said, trying to ignore the chill crawling down his spine. His voice didn't shake, but he crossed his arms and studied Ezio with more suspicion than he had so far. "Why?"

"Are you familiar with the theories of how one universe splits off from the next?" This time Shay shook his head, and Ezio pulled a coin out of his pocket. "Allow me to demonstrate. Heads or tails?"

"Tails."

He flipped the coin and caught it without effort. "Heads," he said.

"So?"

"So in this universe, it's heads. But at the moment the coin landed here, another coin landed in another world that came up tails."

"Right," Shay said. "Okay. So… that one action turned one universe into two universes?"

"More than two," Ezio said. "It also gives us a universe where you said heads and it came up tails, and one where you said heads and it came up heads. And another one where I dropped the coin and we never found out if it was heads or tails. And another one where you thought the question was stupid and refused to play along. And another and another- you can get a lot of universes out of something as simple as a coin toss, and if we're talking about something more complicated than that, it gives birth to even more worlds, with much more interesting changes. If a general on a battlefield orders his troops one way instead of the other, that might be enough to change the course of a battle, which might decide a war, which could shift all of history around it. And at the same time, it might kill a soldier that might otherwise have lived, or destroy a town where a famous person might someday be born, or lead to some glorious last stand that goes down in history."

Shay thought about some of the stranger worlds he had seen on the day of his accident, the ones that still occasionally haunted his nightmares, and nodded. "So there are an infinite number of alternate universes. Sure." At least it made his million or so seem a little less daunting in comparison. It would have been worse to think that every possible world existed inside of him. "What does that have to do with avoiding your visions?"

"I might have given you a false idea of how these worlds work," Ezio admitted. "And where exactly they split from one another. The truth is, it's not actually the action itself that causes one world to split into two. It's the _observance_ of that action. I heard you call tails, you saw me toss the coin, and we saw it come up heads. If we hadn't done those things, if no one had, there would have been no new worlds created."

"So if…" This was more of a struggle. "If neither of us had seen the coin fall, it would have been both heads and tails at the same time? In a single universe?"

"Yes. Schrodinger's coin, if you want to put it like that."

"Alright." He was starting to get a vague idea of where this conversation was going. "So observing the coin flip not only forces the universe to split into two paths, one where it lands heads and one where it lands tails, but it also forces _us_ into one of those specific universes, is that right? There's another universe out there somewhere where we're having this exact conversation, except the coin came up tails. Right?"

"Exactly."

"And if that's the case, then any observation would be able to do that. If you psychically see something happen in the future, you're forcing us into the universe where that thing _has_ to happen, even though it hasn't yet."

"Which is why it's so difficult to avoid a vision coming true," Ezio said. "If I see a vision of a man being run over as he crosses the street, I can't save him by just telling him not to cross. We are already committed to the universe where he dies. Nothing will change this, unless the universe we're in ceases to exist."

"What?" Shay frowned. "That sounds grim."

"Then I used the wrong words. It's not like everyone in the universe suddenly vanishes, or dies. If I use the right techniques, and expend enough energy- and it does take an _extreme_ amount of energy- I can force the universe where he dies to merge with the universe where he doesn't. Two worlds go back to being one. The me that observed his death merges with the me that did not. Both possibilities exist simultaneously, and neither is real until they are observed again, when they actually happen. This gives me time to change things. Warn him, or pull him back. When he is not run over by the car, I observe this, he observes this, the driver of the car observes this. The event of his being run over is not observed by anyone, and no universe is created. The man lives."

"That sounds horrible," Shay said, after more than a minute of struggling to process everything Ezio had told him. "How do you live with that?"

"By choosing when and how to see the future," Ezio said. "If I went around with my eyes constantly open to the future, I would see all kinds of bad things happen, but I wouldn't be able to stop all of them. Or even most of them."

"Have you ever tried?"

"Once," Ezio said. His face was suddenly grim. "When I was very young, I saw a vision of my father and brothers killed in front of me. The sight haunted me for years. Even as a child, I knew that no matter how hard I tried to stop them, my visions always came true. I would do something, and it was like the universe was _fighting_ me to get back to whatever I saw in my vision. But I couldn't stand the idea of my family being killed. I decided to do everything I could to stop it. That's when I learned everything I just explained to you, about other worlds and how to travel between them. And in the end, when I had understood the rules behind my visions, and learned what I needed to do to save them, I was just _barely_ able to do so. The effort put me on life support for a year and a half. But they lived."

Shay frowned. "I don't like what you're telling me."

"Who would? Being psychic is a horrible way to live. Always being careful, because you never know when you might see too much, always moving on because nobody actually trusts you. Always expected to know everything, when that's an impossibility for humans. You can see the future, and if that future is bad, then you have to struggle with the moral decision of whether to risk your own health to help someone else. You can see the past, too, and then suddenly you're in a weird place where you know too much about people. It's just hard."

"Really, you can see the past? I never knew that."

"It doesn't happen as much as seeing the future," Ezio explained. "Most psychics don't talk about it because it's kind of lame."

"Oh!" Shay nodded suddenly, remembering when Arno had seen a vision of Desmond and his brother the way they used to look like, before taking the potion that changed how they looked. That must have been a vision of their past. "Huh." Then he shook his head, pulling his mind back to more important issues. "Tell me the truth, Ezio," he said. "I need to do the best I can for Arno, and you just described a life that I don't want for him. Are things going to be better or worse if I tell you to go away right now?"

"Worse," Ezio said. "Undeniably worse. He will see things for the rest of his life, without being able to control what exactly that is. How many nightmare visions has he already seen? There is no one else in the world that can teach him to deal with that. You need me because he needs me."

And there was no way to argue with that. Shay stood up, and Ezio followed him. "So I've got the job?"

"I have a feeling you already knew that," Shay grumbled. "But yes. On a condition."

He looked Ezio in the eyes, watched them narrow a little as Ezio figured it out. Maybe he saw it in a vision, maybe he was just intelligent or a good guesser. Either way, Shay didn't have to explain. "Why do you want me to tell you your future?"

"Because I got one piece of half information from Arno, and I need to know the rest of the story."

"God," Ezio grumbled, and he looked genuinely put out at being asked. "Whatever Arno told you wasn't good, was it?"

"He told me I'm going to kill his father," Shay said. "I don't think I would do that, and I'm struggling to make sense of… how. Why. Everything."

"I'm going to regret this," Ezio mumbled.

"But you'll do it?"

"I already am," Ezio said absently. "Shut up, this is going to take a while. I need to concentrate"

They must have looked half mad, standing in the August chill and staring at one another. Finally, after nearly five minutes of inactivity, Ezio surprised Shay by falling back a step or two, almost stumbling over his own feet.

"Ezio-" But even as Shay stepped forward to offer him a hand, Ezio twisted away and got to his feet on his own.

"What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?"

There didn't seem to be a good answer to that, and Shay was too shocked to even try. He gaped at Ezio, trying to think of anything at all to say. Finally, because there was nothing else in his brain, he asked, "What did you see me do?"

Ezio stared at him. Then shook his head, managing to relax a little. "I'm sorry. I overreacted a little, you didn't do anything wrong. I didn't mean there's something wrong with you in a 'you've done something wrong' kind of way. More like- um-" For the first time, Ezio seemed to be fumbling for an explanation. He had been a confident speaker until then, even while explaining something as complicated as alternate universes and psychics, but now he was stuttering, stumbling over his words the way he had fallen over his feet a few moments ago. "You have whole other _universes_ stuck inside you, Shay, did you know that?"

"I had noticed, yes." Ezio looked like he was about to ask questions Shay didn't want to answer, so he asked his own first. "Why hasn't Arno seen that?"

"Because he's five years old and most likely hasn't even heard of alternate universes, much less know how to look at them. He wouldn't be able to see." He shrugged. "I mean, until I started looking farther into your future, I didn't realize there was anything off about you. I saw you coming here, for example. That's how I knew exactly when to come down to meet you. But get much farther out than that, and… it gets weird."

That was a relief, at least. He didn't have to worry about scaring Arno by letting him see what Shay really was. But still- "So you can't help me figure out why I'm going to kill Arno's father?"

"Sorry," Ezio said. "I have no idea."

They stared at one another for a while, silently sizing each other up. Shay could see the uncertainty in Ezio's eyes, the sudden doubt after learning what Shay had inside him (and he didn't even know the whole thing, what Shay could do when he was angry). He'd seen that exact look in the eyes of everyone at Davenport before he left. His best friend, his girlfriend, his mentor. For his part, Shay was trying to figure out what bringing this man back to Arno would mean.

Finally, he shrugged and turned away. "Alright," he said. "Do you have any stuff or are you ready to go?"

"They ran me out of town at the end of my last job," Ezio said cheerfully. "I'm traveling light."

"Ran you out of town," Shay repeated. "Because you're a psychic?"

"Because I slept with my boss's girlfriend," Ezio said cheerfully. "He was extremely unhappy about it."

-/-

Arno wasn't particularly interested in his tutor. Leonardo seemed okay, and when Ezio showed up later in the afternoon, Arno wasn't very interested in him, either. He sat through Leonardo's talk about all the things they were going to learn, and didn't offer an opinion when the man asked what he was interested in learning. Then he sat through Ezio's lecture about why he needed to learn to use his psychic abilities better. He didn't say anything to that, either.

After a while, when Ezio and Leonardo had moved into the kitchen to talk (about him?), Shay sat down next to Arno and offered him a sandwich. It was salami and Arno hated salami, but Shay didn't know that so Arno did his best to eat it anyway. "What's wrong?" Shay asked. "You're quiet."

"I dunno."

"I didn't think you knew how to be shy. You never have a problem talking my ear off."

"I don't know them, though. I like you."

"I like you too. But Leonardo and Ezio are good people, and you should give them a chance."

"What if they don't like _me_?"

"What's not to like?" Shay asked, and Arno smiled into his icky salami sandwich. Shay always knew what to say to make him feel like he mattered.

"Why couldn't you be my daddy?" he asked Shay. "You like me more than my real daddy does. And you don't go away. You talk to me like I'm a real person. You took the day off work to bring Ezio back and make sure I was okay. I want to go home with you. You make me feel safe."

"No, Arno." Shay sounded tired but not mean, so Arno was disappointed but not sorry he had asked. "That's not how it works. You don't get to pick your family. Your daddy loves you, Arno, and I bet you love him too."

"Yea. But it's…" There were big feelings taking up room in his heart and only little words in his head to try and explain them. "It's different? I love my daddy because he's my daddy. I love you because you're here. You take care of me even when it's hard for you, and you don't make me feel like I'm just a job for you. I love him cuz of who he is, and I love you because of what you do."

Shay didn't say anything for a really long time. Arno finally forced himself to finish his stupid salami. Then he started to squirm a little because he had kind of expected Shay to say something. "What's wrong?"

Still nothing. Arno looked up at Shay and poked him a little in the side. Maybe he was broken. The finger jab seemed to shake Shay out of whatever was wrong with him at least, and he pulled Arno around to look him in the eye. "You love me, Arno?"

"Of course I do." He didn't even think about it. He'd never thought about it, really, because as soon as he'd seen Shay for the first time he'd felt safe. Shay had never given him reason to doubt that.

"God, Arno-"

"What? Why are you _crying_?"

But Shay only smiled and hugged him, and Arno huffed because grown-ups were weird. They always had to make things hard when they were supposed to be easy. Shay felt like he wasn't supposed to love him, maybe? Like, Arno already had a daddy so Shay didn't think he was allowed to have a place too? That was silly. Love was love and it wasn't like they were ever going to run out if they gave it away too much.

-/-

"You look pretty happy," Desmond said to Shay when the man walked into the bar. It was a Thursday night and the room was mostly empty. "You're either smiling or your face is broken."

"Ha ha ha," Shay said. He sat down and Desmond started to pull out a glass. Shay waved him off. "I didn't come here for a drink, I want to talk."

"Yea? What-"

 _"I am going to murder this kid, Desmond, I am going to wring his tiny little neck and bury him where no one will find him."_

Desmond winced as Altair's anger exploded into his mind, sharp and precise like a blade. _"Calm down. Don't kill any kids and tell me what's wrong, okay?"_

"Desmond? You okay?"

"Sorry, Shay. My brother's being a distraction."

"Do you want me to come back later?" Shay didn't really look like he wanted to leave, though, and Desmond had years of experience in having two conversations at once.

"Nah," he said. "Don't worry about it. What did you come here to talk about?"

 _"-he's disrespectful, he has some kind of a grudge against me, specifically, but he won't tell me what it is. This kid is slowly driving me insane, Desmond, I swear-"_

"I think Arno's going to be okay," Shay said. "I met the guy that's going to be teaching Arno to control his powers."

 _"He was just being his normal self in class today, and for the record that's a problem because his normal self is an ass, and I just snapped and gave him detention for the rest of the year."_

Desmond tried to smile at Shay and wince against Altair's deluge of complaints. His brother had always been more talkative within the privacy of their thoughts than he was around other people, but this was more words than Desmond had heard from Altair in a long time.

"What's this guy like?" he asked Shay. _"Isn't that a lot of detention?"_ he asked Altair.

"A little strange. I guess that's natural, for psychics. He- I don't know. It was strange. He saw-" The bar was nearly empty, but not completely. "…what was wrong with me. I don't think he liked it much, but apart from that I just think he's really going to help Arno."

 _"It_ is _a lot of detention,"_ Altair said. _"That's the problem. I lost my temper and hit him with it and now I can't take it back without letting him know he's won. But now I have to spend every afternoon with him until May."_

Desmond couldn't stop himself from laughing at that. He thought he must have looked crazy, but luckily no one but Shay even gave him a second glance.

"What's wrong with you?" Shay asked, in the mildly affronted tone of someone that thought he was being laughed at for no reason.

"Sorry." He put a finger to his head in a vague gesture. "Altair's telling me about this hole he dug himself into."

"Oh. Are you having two conversations at once? That's kind of rude."

"Yea," Desmond snorted. "Sure. You try ignoring someone that talks to you from inside your own head, see how well that goes for you. I'm listening to you, don't worry. Tell me more about this guy that's helping Arno."

"Nothing to say, really," Shay said, apparently appeased by Desmond's explanation. "But-" he leaned forward, and Desmond took advantage of a new rant to tune Altair out and focus on Shay. "Am I in too deep with Arno?"

"What does that mean?"

"I mean he told me he loves me today. He compared me to his _father._ "

"Well, lucky you," Desmond said. "What's the problem?"

"I'm not his father. I have my problems with the man, but I can't take that away from him."

"No," Desmond said. "Don't. Don't overcomplicate things like that. He's a five year old boy that has someone in his life that cares about him. From what I know about his life, the kid has never had that. Do you want to take that away from him now that he has it? Do you want him to love you? Do _you_ love _him_?"

The silence that followed this question would have been far more impressive if Altair hadn't still been shouting inside Desmond's head. ( _"He's impossible to deal with, I don't know what to do-")_ The whole bar seemed to be holding its breath, as if the universe itself was waiting on his answer. _("If he would just tell me what I did wrong I could do something about it, but apparently that's too much to ask")_ Then Shay nodded. _("He'll ruin me")_ "Well, yea," he said. "I love that kid."

 _"I hate that kid."_


	11. Chapter 11

Detention with Malik was turning out to be more of a punishment for Altair than for Malik. One day into it and he was already regretting this choice. They'd spent an awkward hour sitting in silence while Altair graded papers and Malik watched him in stony silence. When the clock on the wall hit 3:00, Altair pointed at the door and Malik walked out without a word.

On the second day, Altair decided to try something different. Malik walked into the classroom at the end of the school day with a mouth like he'd just sucked on a lemon, just like the day before. He started to head for his usual seat but Altair shook his head and pointed to the chair he'd set up on the other side of his desk.

"What?" Malik asked. "You want to have a heart to heart or something?"

 _"Desmond,"_ Altair whined, and he felt the barest hint of laughter against the edge of his mind. It was muffled and distant, which meant that he was trying really hard not to be overheard.

 _"Sorry, it's just- come on, he's like six."_

 _"Sure, easy for you to say. The only kid you have to deal with is apparently adorable and easy to deal with."_

"Can I go back to my seat now?" Malik asked, and Altair shook his head.

 _"Sorry, man,"_ Desmond said. _"You're on your own. And for the record, Arno's psychic. He comes with his own set of problems."_

 _"Thanks."_ He frowned at Malik. "Sit down and tell me what's wrong with you."

Malik sat, collapsing bonelessly onto the chair. He slouched there with his arms crossed over his chest and glared at Altair as if daring him to say something. Altair, who had never been great with words, only glared back. He was disappointed but not particularly surprised when Malik remained completely unfazed by this.

"Are you really going to make me come back every day?" Malik asked. "What is this supposed to prove?"

"It's supposed to be a punishment."

"For you, or for me?"

Altair was saved from flushing obviously only because his complexion was dark. He grunted something unintelligible and glared at Malik. Malik glared right back.

Neither of them moved for five full minutes, and then the door opened.

Altair glanced up and bit back a curse. _"Desmond,"_ he said. _"Your dad's here."_

 _"What?"_ The feeling of Desmond in his mind, normally no more than a sort of mental white noise, was suddenly intense and fully present. Altair flinched at the way it made his head feel stuffed and over full, then tried his best to focus.

"Mr. Miles," he said. "What brings you here?"

"I heard from Achilles that Desmond has been in contact with Shay Cormac," William said. "I should have heard about it from you."

"I didn't think it was any of your business," Altair said. "You have nothing to do with Cormac."

"I have told you more than once that I expect to be kept up to date on Desmond's movements!" William shouted. "The man is dangerous, and there's no reason to expose Desmond to something like that!" Altair stood and cursed Desmond's original height. Before the potion, Altair had been four inches taller than Desmond, and he'd never really regained the height advantage as he got older. Now he had to look up to meet William's angry glare.

"You're my superior," he said calmly. " _Professionally_ speaking. You have the authority to dictate my research projects, classroom duties, and extra assignments. You do not have the authority to dictate what I share with you about my family."

 _"Why are you deliberately pissing him off?!"_

"He is _not_ your family!" William leaned forward, close enough to slam his fist against the desk, close enough that his shouted words sent flecks of spit flying into Altair's face. Altair didn't flinch, either against William's outburst or Desmond's angry protest in his mind. "He is _my_ son, and you _stole_ him from me!"

"You never wanted him," Altair said. He expected to feel angry, but a kind of stone cold calm had settled over him instead. Very gently, but relentlessly, he pushed Desmond away. When he was as far (as he could ever be) from Altair's mind, he slid a mental wall between them to keep Desmond away. He didn't want his brother to hear this. "Do you remember that? In your delusional reinvention of the facts, did you ever stop to think about the way you treated Desmond when he _was_ your son? He was constantly sick. He was smaller and weaker than the rest of us. He was always missing school because he was in the hospital, so he was always the outsider. Before me, he never had a single friend."

"Don't you dare criticize me for that," William said. "I can't help that he was messed up when he was born. Desmond's health is not my fault."

Messed up. "No," Altair said. "Maybe not. But it was your fault for never being there for him when he needed you. I said he never had a _friend_ before me, but he never had a _family_."

"He was mine!"

"He's not a possession!" Altair snapped, suddenly shouting as well. "Desmond is my brother. He is _not_ your son! You forfeited that right a long time ago, and somehow thank _God_ , Desmond was still emotionally together enough to turn his back on someone that was no damn good for him. Genetically, mentally, emotionally, we're brothers. I'm not perfect." He thought, with some guilt, about the time he and Desmond had spent fighting and slowly drifting apart from each other. But even before they made up, Altair knew he still would have done anything for Desmond. "But he's my brother. I would fight for him. I would lie, cheat, steal, and kill for him. That's what family means, not that you would know a damn thing about the concept."

"You are standing on very shaky ground," William said. "When I'm in charge here, you're not going to be able to get away with this kind of bullshit anymore."

"When you're in charge?" Altair asked. "You're a decent researcher, but you could never be in charge of all this."

"We'll see," William sneered. He turned and walked away, and only when the door slammed shut behind him did Altair fall back into his chair.

He leaned back and pressed his hands against his face until little spots of light danced behind his eyes. Then, very slowly and very precisely, he said, "Fuck." Somehow, it made him feel very slightly better.

When he opened his eyes, whatever tiny comfort he had managed to regain leaked immediately away. In the face of William's tirade and accusations, he had forgotten Malik completely. The boy was still there, though, sitting still as a stone in his chair. He seemed to have shrunk into himself, and the smart ass look from earlier had fallen completely off his face. Altair straightened up, trying to scrape together some semblance of professionalism.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," he said slowly, into the dead silence of the classroom. "You can leave now, you don't have to-"

"You have a brother?" Malik's voice was high and thin, and Altair was suddenly reminded that the asshole he'd been fighting with was still just a child.

"Yea."

"Me too," Malik said, and Altair eyed him carefully. It was impossible to guess why the shouting match should make Malik suddenly want to open up to him, but he wasn't going to question it. "His name's Kadar. Technically we're twins, but he came out second so he's always been my little brother." He fidgeted on his chair and looked up at Altair. He took a deep breath and didn't look down again. "We don't have a lot of money."

"You're here on scholarship?"

Malik nodded. Roughly a third of the total students at the homestead were scholarship students, people with unique powersets (Altair had been one of those) or demonstrated ability to perform strong magic (older students and transfers, mostly), or people with the brains or stubbornness to convince the administration they deserved a free ride. From what he knew of Malik, Altair assumed the boy fell into that category.

"This school was our only chance to get away from home," Malik said.

"How bad are things at home?"

Malik shrugged. "Sometimes we don't have a place to stay. Momma…" He flushed angrily at the word as it slipped out and corrected himself. "Our mother has, um… she doesn't work very much."

"No dad?"

" _No_ ," Malik said firmly. "He only comes by sometimes, when he needs money. And he's mean. Me and Kadar both hated it there. We wanted to leave, and I heard about this place. I thought it would save us, so I sent letters, again and again and again until we got interviews. We live in New York, so I figured out how to hide in a train to get here. We hid in a shipping containers full of rolled up carpets, we made caves and tunnels in the fabric. Kadar thought it was the best thing that ever happened to us. He called it an adventure.

"Then we got here, and we got split up for the interviews. There were so many kids."

"Four hundred this year," Altair said. "I remember. I had to give some of those interviews." And how weird had that been, talking to five year olds like they knew what they were doing, trying to figure out which ones were mature enough to be admitted. In the end he'd given up and gone home early, because the whole thing felt like a ridiculous sham. Half the kids just broke down crying for their mommys anyway, it was exhausting.

"I talked to Ms. Jensen," Malik said. It figured that Hope would have liked him, they were both as difficult to like as the other. "Kadar was supposed to talk to you. Only you never showed up."

…because he had gone home early.

Malik seemed to have noticed that Altair had figured out what he had done wrong, because he nodded maliciously. "I was going to wait a year," he said. "So we could come here together. But Kadar insisted I should come here without him. He said if I gave up my scholarship now they might not give me a second chance. So he went back home where anything could happen! Dad could come home and beat him, or mom could hurt him while she's high, or there could be an accident, or-"

"Malik-"

"If something bad happens, you _killed_ my brother," Malik said, in a voice that did not sound at all like a child's. It was precise and heavy like every word was supposed to be a weapon. "I would do anything for him, if there was anything at all I coulddo that would help. You have a brother. Maybe you understand. I can't do anything to help him except hate you." He got up to go, but Altair was quicker and grabbed his arm.

"Let go of me!" Malik pulled but Altair had twenty years and about three feet on him, and he couldn't get away. He stopped struggling and glared. "I'll scream," he said.

"Don't."

Malik opened his mouth and Altair picked him up and sat him down on the desk. The surprise of the movement had at least startled him away from thinking about screaming. He looked absolutely livid, and when he opened his mouth only a thin whine of protest came out. He looked torn between listing off every one of Altair's faults, and giving into the tears Altair could see starting at the corners of his eyes.

"What's going to happen?" Altair asked. "What are you so afraid of?"

"I told you," Malik said. "Anything could happen. He needs me to keep him safe."

"From what?"

"Anything!"

"From. What."

Malik pinched his mouth tight shut and pulled up the front of his robes. The skin underneath was a patchwork of old bruises and cuts, in various stages of healing. "Dad," he said. "Or some other man that comes following her home." He let Altair get a good look, then pulled his clothes back on. "He's my little brother," he said. "I have to keep him safe."

"I'm sorry," Altair said. "I screwed up by not being there. But I'm not the one hitting you, or hitting your brother."

"You could have stopped it, though."

"Malik, I didn't _know_! You can't expect other people to magically know what your problems are or how to solve them. If you want help, you have to ask for it. You've been walking around here since school started, putting all your effort into punishing me, when instead you could have just asked for help and solved this weeks ago."

"It's not that easy."

"It could be."

Malik looked at Altair, and Altair thought that the boy had never looked as young as he did right now. His eyes slid slowly away from Altair's face, down and down until he was staring at the ground. "My brother's going to be really hurt if he stays where he is," he said. "He's too nice. He always tries to make things better but some people are too mean. Seeing someone try to be nice just makes them meaner. When I'm at home, I can keep him away from people that want to hurt him. Now I can't. And if… if…" his voice dropped along with his eyes, until it was only a whisper. "Will you please help me get Kadar away from our momma, so he won't get hurt anymore?"

Altair didn't smile, because he was pretty sure Malik would hate that. He nodded instead. "I can help," he said.

"You can bring him here?"

"Maybe," Altair said. He gestured vaguely at the door where William had disappeared after shouting at him. "I'm not exactly popular right now. But-" he raised a hand to stop Malik from interrupting. "This is what I will do. I'm going to talk to my brother. He lives very close to New York, and he will go find your brother."

"What will he do with him?"

"Well," Altair said. "The man that was in here earlier used to be his father. He wasn't a hitter like your dad, but he treated his son like trash."

"Seems like he treats everyone like trash," Malik said tentatively.

"We have some history. The point is, _my_ brother will do anything it takes to keep _your_ brother safe, because he knows what that feels like. As soon as Kadar is somewhere safe, we can talk about what happens next."

"Okay," Malik said. He looked like he didn't quite know how to feel about this turn of events, a little bit lost or even deflated, _smaller_ without the hatred Altair had gotten used to seeing in him. "Wha- what's your brother's name?"

"Desmond."

"Okay." Malik slid off the desk and this time Altair let him go without a word.

 _"Desmond,"_ he said instead, letting down the barriers he'd put up to keep his brother out. _"I need a favor."_

-/-

Desmond had not been happy when Altair asked him to head into a nasty part of New York to take a six year old away from his mother. Even when Altair explained so that Desmond understood the necessity of it all, he still didn't _like_ it. Altair had talked vaguely about showing up and just taking the kid away, but that was because Altair had lived almost his whole life in one place with a small group of people and didn't always get the way the rest of the world worked. Desmond decided on a different tactic.

He spent three hours on the phone with Malik, who impressed him as an intelligent kid, unusually mature for his age. They talked about the specifics Malik hadn't been willing to talk about with Altair. Then, armed with these more particular details, he went to the police.

They took three days to call him back with the news that they had been able to find Kadar, and just in time from the sound of things. Child services had arrived just in time to interrupt a fight ("domestic disturbance") which had at least removed any doubt that it was a fit environment for children. Desmond wasn't entirely sure the extent of the damage until the police called and asked him to come down to the station to sign a statement about what he'd learned from Malik.

That was how Desmond first met Kadar, through a one way mirror in a too white hallway in a police station. He looked a lot like Altair had described Malik, except there was dirt on his fingers and his face looked like it smiled a lot. Not right now, though. He had been left alone with a coloring book (which he was completely ignoring), and a four pack of crayons (which he was using to redecorate the table in front of him). But he did it aimlessly, like he'd just as rather be doing anything else.

"Damn." The cop that had brought Desmond by to see Kadar rolled his eyes at the sight. "Kids. I gotta go find something to wash that shit off the table. Stay here for a minute?"

"Can I go in?" Desmond asked. "Talk to him a little?"

"Absolutely not," the cop said. "We just got this kid out of an unsafe household, child services says he needs to be slowly introduced to new people."

"Sure," Desmond said. "Okay." And he waited long enough for the cop to turn the corner before he opened the door and went in to see Kadar. The boy looked up at him and then down at his coloring.

"Oops," he said. There was no apology there, just a challenge. Desmond looked down at the table and shrugged. "It's not my table," he said. "I don't care."

"What if it was your table?"

"Then I'd be handing you soap and a washcloth and telling you to clean it up."

"What if I didn't?"

"Then I guess you'd be at that table until you changed your mind."

"Would you hit me?"

"No."

"Would you shout at me?"

"No."

"Okay." Kadar went back to coloring on the table and Desmond sat down across from him. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Desmond smiled. "I'm Desmond. My brother is in California," he said. "With your brother."

"At school," Kadar said.

"Yea. My brother is one of his teachers, and we have a telepathic connection with each other."

"How does that work?"

"Magic. So-"

"Yea, but _how_?"

Desmond bit back a sigh. "You ask a lot of questions, kid."

"So you don't know?"

"The point," Desmond said, because he didn't expect they'd have too much time together. "Is that he's with your brother right now, and your brother wants to tell you something."

"I wanna tell him something too!" Kadar said. "Tell him, um- tell him I miss him. And I wanna see him soon. Tell him is he okay? Tell him they took momma and daddy away. They said we don't have to see them anymore but I don't know where I'm supposed to go now. Don't-" his eyes were suddenly wide and worried. "Desmond, don't tell him I colored on the table, he's gonna get mad."

 _"Did you get all that?"_ Desmond asked, only half managing to hide a smile.

 _"Got it,"_ Altair said. _"You know, as much Malik pisses me off, I'm kind of glad you got the other brother. This one doesn't talk as much."_

Desmond waited while Altair relayed the message and then repeated Malik's words. "He says he loves you, and don't get in trouble."

They both looked at the table again. For a second, there was silence. Then Kadar put his hand over his mouth and giggled.

"Didn't I tell you not to come in here?"

The cop glowered at Desmond as he came back in with a wet rag and started to aggressively scrub at the table. It didn't do anything but smear the crayon around a little, and after a few seconds the guy threw the rag down and scowled. "You," he said, pointing at Desmond. "Come with me."

Desmond followed him out and as soon as the door was shut he asked, "What's going to happen to him?"

"Uh-" the cop glanced back at Kadar and shrugged. "Foster care, probably? You said his brother's the same age as him, right?"

"Yea."

"Well then, he's out of the question as a caregiver. No other family we can find, apart from an aunt in prison."

"That can't be the only other option, though," Desmond protested. "He just got away from abusive parents, he can't just be abandoned there. His brother's at school in California, can't we send Kadar there too?"

"Because the state of New York took custody of him as soon as we took him away from his parents," the cop said. "Sending him to California would be a bureaucratic nightmare, and frankly no one's going to take the time to do it."

"But-" He didn't know where the words came from, but suddenly there they were, bursting out of his mouth like he'd planned them all along. "Can I suggest something?"

-/-

"Here," Desmond said an hour and a half later, throwing Kadar's single bag of things onto the floor. "It's not much, but it's better than nothing. Bedroom. Bathroom. Kitchen." He pointed vaguely around the apartment. "Table's not for coloring on."

"Course not," Kadar said, standing on his toes to look up at the half dead plant on the shelf by the door. "You wouldn't let me bring my crayons." He turned around and knocked the pot onto the floor, where it shattered and sent dirt flying all across the carpet. "Oops."

-/-

"Elise is starting today, right?"

He and Leonardo were bent over a sheet of figures that Leonardo had been trying to coax him into solving. Arno didn't like math under the best of circumstances, but today he was even more distracted.

"She's supposed to be here in an hour," Leonardo said. "Ezio's bringing her."

"Okay."

"Can we talk about numbers now?"

"Um…" He went quiet again and shook his head. Leonardo sighed and pushed the math aside. "You haven't said a word to me since Shay told you to apologize. Don't you want to learn?"

Arno shrugged and looked at the table.

"Ezio tells me you're not doing much with him, either," Leonardo said. "I thought you really wanted to learn about being psychic? Remember how Ezio told you about all the cool things he can do?" Technically, Leonardo had been the one to say Ezio was cool, not Arno. "Don't you want to be able to do that too?"

Arno still didn't say anything. He never said anything, Leonardo was right about that. He wasn't used to this, and wasn't sure he liked it. School so far sure had a lot of grown-ups asking questions. Arno was nervous about getting things wrong, he was nervous about looking dumb, he was nervous about messing up and getting his chance at friends taken away from him. So he didn't really say anything.

The front door opened and Arno practically shot out of his chair, vibrating with nervous energy. "Maybe she's early?" he asked. He half turned away from the door to look at Leonardo, and that was how he missed the boy come hurtling around the corner into the kitchen and hit him.

"Oops!"

Leonardo looked down at where the two boys were all tangled up together on the floor, and smiled at Arno. "Do I have to point out that if you were actually participating in Ezio's class, you would have seen that coming?"

Arno groaned, and picked himself up off the floor as Leonardo switched his attention to the other boy. "And what are you doing here?"

"That's my fault, sorry."

"Desmond?" Arno asked, looking up at the man as he came in. "What are you doing here?"

"This is Kadar," Desmond said. "He's staying with me for a while, and the cops said he needs to be in school if I plan on keeping him with me. Only I don't want to stick him in school, so I thought why not here?"

"Well, not that I'm complaining, but why not at school?"

"I don't know anything about the public school system," Desmond said. "And I would really rather not have to learn it. I talked to Shay, he said he was cool with me bringing Kadar here, at least until Charles comes back and says otherwise, so I figured why not?"

Arno smiled because now there were two other kids coming today instead of one, and that was exciting. "Hi," he said.

Kadar was looking at his eyes. "Desmond said you're psychic."

"Yea. So?"

"That's weird," Kadar said. His voice was matter of fact.

"You smell bad," Arno said.

"You're really short."

"You're a butt!"

"Boys," Leonardo scolded. "Behave."

Kadar beamed at Arno, and Arno smiled uncertainly back.

"Is this okay with you?" Desmond asked.

"I can handle one more," Leonardo said confidently.

"Great. See you later, Kadar."

"Bye!"

But Desmond only got as far as the front door before it opened again, and Arno heard voices from the hall. One was Desmond's, one was Ezio's, and one was a little girl's. A few minutes later, Desmond headed out and Ezio came in with Elise. She was taller than either Arno or Kadar, with dark red hair in a braid down her back.

"She's really pretty," Arno whispered to Kadar, while Elise traded polite introductions with Leonardo.

"Ew," Kadar said. "She's a girl." He wrinkled his nose and Elise looked around at the two of them.

"Ew," she echoed. "Boys."

Kadar stuck his tongue out and Elise made a face and Arno froze with sudden nerves. He didn't say anything while Leonardo wrangled the three of them into places around the kitchen table. Ezio sat on a stool next to the back door, across the room from Arno.

Leonardo looked at the three of them, and seemed to be considering something. Then he nodded. "Back to math, then."

"Oh," Arno said softly, as the worksheets came back out. Elise reached across the table, grabbing the nearest piece of paper.

"Math is easy," she said.

"Math is _hard_ ," Kadar protested. "Tell her, Arno."

"It's hard and boring," he said, nodding.

"No!" Elise got off her chair and shoved it across the table until she could sit closer to the two boys. "Look, it's easy-"

The three of them spent the rest of the morning arguing over the math and trying to figure out the right answers. Kadar kept drawing pictures of fruit under the problems he didn't know how to solve, and Elise kept yelling at him to stop it. Arno was a little bit quieter than either of them, but there was a funny, fluttering feeling in his stomach that was like nothing he had ever felt before. As the morning wore on, he started to have visions. First just one, then two, then more and more and more. The room filled up with him and Elise and Kadar, sometimes little like they were now and sometimes older, but (always) together, grouped around a table or spread out at desks or reading from books. And the older they got, the closer they got, so that Arno could see their whole friendship unfolding in front of him in stupid jokes and shared experiences, a _promise_ of something good in his future.

And then there was Ezio's hand on his shoulder, and Arno looked up at him. The visions quieted and faded away. "You okay?" Ezio whispered, and Arno nodded.

"I'm good," he said. "I just saw a whole lot of stuff at the same time."

"I can tell," Ezio said. "You have that look in your eyes."

"What look?" Arno asked, and Ezio mimicked a startled, wide eyed look that made Arno giggle.

"Was it good stuff, at least?" Ezio asked.

"Yea."

"Hey Arno," Kadar called. "Stop whispering and come help us with this!"

"Coming," Arno said, and there was something special about knowing he the two people next to him were going to become his best friends, while still being able to look forward to the whole experience of getting to know them.

 **-/-**

 **Fun fact: Kadar was originally supposed to die in this chapter, and then my whole entire brain went NOPE and decided he needed to be protected and suddenly this happened. So now I have to replan a bunch of later chapters. Silly Kadar. Don't make things so difficult for me.**


	12. Chapter 12

A year passed in relative calm after Arno started classes. There were little bumps along the road, but mostly Shay was able to watch Arno slowly figure out how to be happy. He started to participate in his lessons, both Leonardo's general studies and Ezio's more specific lessons on psychics. He went through a phase in the early spring where he would show up at Shay's apartment early in the morning and rattle off a whole description of what his day was going to be like. Luckily, Arno got bored of this quickly, and Shay never had to mention how uncomfortable it made him.

He also started to make friends with Elise and Kadar. If they hadn't spent hours together almost every day, Shay would have thought their friendship was practically unexplainable. The three of them could not have been more dissimilar, on the face of things. Elise was from an upper class family that had always had more money than everyone else. She came to the Dorian house to learn math and science and English, but at home she had lessons in etiquette and how to walk with grace and speak with eloquence. The general understanding was that one day she would marry rich and become an ambassador or a diplomat or something similar.

And everywhere that Elise was smooth, Kadar was rough. He came to class every day without fail, including the day he had chicken pox and passed it onto both Arno and Elise. Class had been cancelled for a week, but since all three of them were already sick, it was decided that they might as well spend the time together. Arno told Shay all about it when he came by with tissues and soap, covered in polka dots but excited anyway. But other than class, Kadar didn't have much to do. Desmond worked weird hours at the bar, and while they got along perfectly well when they were together (apparently they had a shared taste in shitty old movies that neither Shay nor anyone else understood), Kadar still spent a good chunk of his time alone, mostly wandering the streets and getting into trouble. As far as Shay could tell it was never the malicious kind of trouble, but he was… just that kind of a kid. Whether it was going exploring and finding a flock of ducks crossing a busy road (and immediately deciding that he needed to help them get across safely), or picking a fight with older boys that were picking on other kids (for all that he looked a little like a chubby marshmallow, Kadar had a kind of blunt strength in him that Shay thought must have been a surprise to the kids that thought he would be an easy victim). The funny part was the way his brother was always calling or writing to check up on him, like he was convinced Kadar was too soft to look after himself.

And then there was Arno, who was just happy to be there. He was smart enough, but never grasped things as quickly as Elise. And he was bold (enough to keep sneaking out to visit Shay), but not the same kind of troublemaker as Kadar. But he was the one that kept the three of them together. Elise liked to argue and Kadar liked to fight, but Arno liked to pull his friends close and never let go. Whenever they got mad he pulled them back together, tugging at them until they gave up and let themselves be friends again. He was by far the most naïve out of the three of them, hopelessly clueless about the way the world worked, and both Elise and Kadar had admitted to Shay that made them feel almost protective of Arno.

Which was more than could be said for Charles Dorian. While Elise and Kadar were becoming his friends, while Ezio and Leonardo told Shay over and over that he was a good kid to teach, while Desmond was getting fond of him and Shay was learning to love him, Charles Dorian was… missing. Sort of. Shay knew where the man was, most of the time. He rarely left without telling anyone, or at least leaving a note, but the man was always gone. It got worse as time went on, until by the time the year had passed, Charles was gone for more than a month at a time. It wasn't fair, and it wasn't right, and it pissed Shay off to no end. But really, there was nothing he could do.

And into this relatively stable life came Gist. He showed up at Desmond's bar (it had a name, and once upon a time Shay had known it, but it had long since ceased to be anything but Desmond's bar, never mind the fact that he was one of half a dozen bartenders working there) at midafternoon, at the slowest time of the day. Shay was there for the conversation more than anything else, and Kadar was sitting (on the bar) with a book open in front of him and a frown on his face while he pouted about finishing his summer homework.

"Long time no see," Gist said, and while he didn't shout it, there was a booming quality to his voice that brought everyone's attention toward him.

"Hey!" Shay said, standing up to greet him. "How was looking for Atlantis?"

"If I told you that, I'd have to kill you."

"Really?"

"Nah, but I'd get my bonus slashed. It's confidential."

"So you found something?"

"Three kraken, a herd of mermaid, and pirates."

"But no Atlantis?"

Gist's smile got bigger. "Let's just say they want me back in a couple of months."

Desmond laughed out loud. "Holy shit," he said. "You found Atlantis."

"You're not supposed to say shit," Kadar informed him. "Malik's going to write you another angry letter."

"He was going to do that anyway," Desmond said dismissively.

"You shouldn't have let Altair give him your address," Kadar said.

"We're all justj lucky Malik hasn't found out I let you hang out here," Desmond said, gesturing at the bar. Kadar giggled and nodded.

"So clearly I've missed out on some stuff," Gist said. He sat down between Shay and Kadar, and Desmond passed him a drink. "Who's this guy?"

"I'm Kadar," Kadar said.

"His brother knows my brother," Desmond explained. "It's this whole complicated thing."

"I'm grounded," Kadar said cheerfully, and Desmond gave a hopeless kind of shrug in response to Gist's raised eyebrow.

"He's grounded for sneaking out," Desmond explained. "If I leave him home, he's going to do the same thing again."

"I like going on adventures," Kadar said enthusiastically. "There's a big tree at the park, and the branches look like a dragon! So I went to the park and I was fighting him with a big stick, and-"

"And then he came back home covered in mud with a new pet."

"It's a lizard," Kadar said. "His name is George."

"More like pain up my butt," Desmond muttered, but there was no actual anger in his voice, just a frustrated kind of resignation.

"We can't find him," Kadar said sadly.

"So you like adventures?" Gist asked. "Wanna hear about this kraken I saw?"

"Yea!"

"Don't give him ideas!" Desmond hissed, but it was too late. Gist launched into a long (and likely greatly exaggerated, although with him, Shay couldn't really be sure) story about a fight with a kraken deep underwater, which Kadar listened to with rapt attention. When the story was over, Shay got up and tugged at Gist's arm.

"Come on," he said. "You're halfway to convincing the kid he should give up life on land to sail the high seas."

"Not a bad life," Gist said, but he followed Shay agreeably enough. "So that's not Desmond's kid, right?"

"Nope. We just seem to be attracting kids like it's going out of style."

"Who else is hanging around, then?" Gist asked. "Apart from Arno, I mean?"

"Well, there's Kadar's brother," Shay said. "Malik. He's out in California with Desmond's brother. And Elise. She's the good one. By which I mean, she's the one that doesn't cause trouble."

"Sounds like you had a lot of excitement while I was gone," Gist said.

"Not as much as you. Kraken, huh?"

"Not going to lie," Gist said. "It was amazing. But there are different kinds of excitement."

"Well, you could always stick around for a while," Shay said. "But I have a funny feeling you're going to take off again soon."

"I'm only in town for a month," Gist agreed. "And then it's back to the sea. You should come with me sometime."

The pounding of small footsteps on the sidewalk was the only warning they got before Arno came running up. He was dressed in his nice clothes, which meant the nanny had insisted. Arno liked T-shirts and shorts, even in winter, but today he was in slacks and a nice shirt. There was only one reason the nanny would have insisted, and Shay sighed as he poked Arno on the forehead. "What are you doing here, huh? Isn't your dad home?"

"I wanted to see Mr. Gist," Arno said. He looked enormously proud of himself. "I was with Ezio, and he was helping me practice on directing my visions, and I saw he was coming back-" he pointed at Gist. "So I wanted to come say hi."

"Hi Arno," Gist said. He bent over and gave the kid a high five. "How's it going?"

"Great!"

"Arno," Shay said, raising his voice a little. "What about your dad? He was supposed to come in today."

"He was _supposed_ to come home today," Arno said. "But he won't."

"Did you see that in a vision too?" Shay asked.

"No." Arno looked at Gist like he was crazy. "He never comes home on time."

Which would have been impossible to argue with, except that Shay's phone happened to ring at that precise moment. He turned away from Gist and Arno as they started talking excitedly together. "Hello?"

"Cormac, Hi. Is my son with you?" It was Charles's voice, sounding tired and stressed.

"Yea, actually, he's right here."

"I'm at the house," Charles said. "The nanny told me he was in his room but of course he isn't."

"He just showed up about a minute ago," Shay said. "Do you want me to bring him back?"

"Please," Charles said. "As soon as possible." And then he hung up without another word.

Shay smiled at Arno and picked him up, grunting a little from the effort. The boy was getting big, and heavy. "I have a surprise for you," he said. "Your dad's home."

"He is?" Arno asked, and he didn't sound either excited or disappointed as much as he sounded surprised.

"Yea. I'm taking you home again."

Arno nodded and drooped against Shay's shoulder. "Fine," he said. "If you have to."

-/-

Altair had been excused from teaching duties this year, to his complete and utter relief. William Miles had argued against Altair being allowed to leave the classroom, possibly just because he disliked him. This had been back in July, and Altair had been busy with other things (such as new student interviews, because there was zero chance that he was putting another kid in the same position as Kadar. Desmond's poor apartment couldn't take another ward). He had been only vaguely aware of the battle waging around him, as William tried to push more of his people into important roles and eliminate those that supported Achilles.

It was an obvious power play, a ploy to set things up for when Achilles eventually decided to retire. Or dropped dead behind his desk one day, as Altair was privately convinced he would. In the end, Achilles had managed to push William away for another year, and Altair had ended up being reassigned to research. He liked that better. Less kids involved.

"You're doing it wrong. Move over and let me help."

Less kids apart from Malik, anyway, who seemed to have decided he couldn't leave Altair alone as long as he was in any way connected to Kadar.

"How do you keep getting in here?" Altair groused. "Students aren't allowed in the research tower."

"I tell people I'm assisting you," Malik said.

"You're not," Altair said. "I don't even like you."

"I _should_ be assisting you though," Malik insisted stubbornly, ignoring the part about not Altair not liking him. Even with Kadar safe, there was now too much bad blood between the two of them to allow friendly (or even corgial) communications. "You're doing it wrong."

"What do you even know about any of this?" Altair demanded, setting down the sandwich he'd been trying to eat on his lunch break. "I understand that you're some kind of a genius, but you're also six-"

" _Seven_."

"Fine. Seven years old. We're doing experimental work here and you haven't even had a single class in anything involving magic yet. What about this could you possibly understand better than I do?"

"Nothing. I was talking about your sandwich. You're dripping on your desk." Malik pushed his elbows aside with quick little fingers and threw a towel at the slowly growing mess. "Although I assume, based on the fact that you can't even eat your sandwich correctly, that you're also hopeless at whatever you're doing here."

"Can we just talk about whatever you came here to criticize me for?" Altair asked.

"I want to help," Malik said. "I looked at the student code, and we're allowed to work part time in the tower. Let me do that."

Altair laughed at him. Then he stopped. "You're serious. Never mind, of course you are. You're always serious. It's ridiculous how serious you are. But no, that's not going to happen. Students are allowed to help, but those positions are reserved for older students. Ones that actually know what they're doing? Because they've actually had classes, learned a few enchantments?"

Malik shook his head. "So what I'm hearing is not yet."

"What you're hearing is that you should go away and bother someone else in ten years."

"Yea," Malik said. "I'm not great at waiting." He sat down on a stool next to Altair and pointed at the closest table. "What's that?"

"Something you're not supposed to know about."

"Alright. How about that?" His finger shifted a little. "Highly technical."

"And that?"

"Look, Malik. I don't have the time or the patience to give you a complete magical education."

"Then I hope you have the time to stand there and listen to me ask what everything is, because I am not going away. I need this. I have nothing else to fall back on. I need to be the best because if I'm not, then when I finish school I'm going right back to where I came from and I am _not_ going to let that happen. Understand?"

"Get out of here kid," Altair said. "Go learn some stuff and then bother someone else about this in a few more years."

"No," Malik said, and he did not move.

Altair watched him for several seconds. Then he shook his head and snorted as his mouth twitched upward into a simile, just a bit. "Fine," he said. "We'll start with this thing. It's made to detect magic and it's worth more than you are, so don't break it."

And Malik smiled back.

-/-

Arno stood uncomfortably in the living room, waiting for his father to notice him. Shay had dropped him off a while ago, and since then neither Arno nor his father had said anything. Arno was just standing in the middle of the room, unhappy and impatient, thinking about krakens and mermaids and all the other places he would so much rather be than here. His father was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. Silent.

Ezio and the nanny had both been there when Arno ran out to find Shay earlier. They'd been gone when he got back, leaving him alone with his father for the first time in months. This was stinky. He wanted to go to his room and play video games or something but he had a funny feeling that wasn't going to happen until he said something to his father. Only he didn't want to say anything first, and his father didn't look like he was going to say anything either.

Arno screwed up his face and tried peeking into the future, the way Ezio had been teaching him, _directing_ his visions to the specific event he wanted to see. In this case, whatever was going to kickstart his conversation with his father. Except that he missed and got a vision of breakfast tomorrow instead, which was not at all helpful.

"Did you want to talk about something?" Arno asked at last, and his father looked up at him through very red eyes.

"C'mere, Arno," he said, but something about the tone in his voice made Arno not want to go. His father looked up and snapped "Come _here_ ," again, so suddenly it made his magic dance like sparks along the edges of his skin. It was purple, and Arno frowned at it. He didn't really understand what his father could do, as a high mage, but he knew the title came with a lot more raw magical talent than most people could dream of. It had never scared him before.

He stepped reluctantly closer to his father, and then gasped in surprise as his father grabbed him (tight) and pulled him close. If anyone had been there to watch, it would have looked like a hug, maybe. But it didn't feel like one. It didn't feel warm, it felt like being trapped, and Arno squirmed until he realized that was only making the grip tighter.

"What are you doing?" Arno asked. "You're hurting me!"

"Do you still love me, Arno?" He didn't say it fast, but the words all ran together anyway.

Arno nodded. "Sure," he said. "Of course."

"More than Shay?"

Shay didn't go away like his father did, but Arno said "Sure," again, because he wasn't entirely stupid.

"No," his father said, and he suddenly let go of Arno and pushed a hand against his chest. It wasn't a hard push, but it was enough to send him stumbling backwards. "I don't like it when you lie, Arno. Didn't anyone teach you better than that?"

Arno sniffed, because there were tears on his face, and then wrinkled his nose because his father smelled a lot like Desmond did sometimes after he worked all day. There was a bottle on the table, and Arno ran over and snatched it before his father could figure out what he was doing. The whole contents of the bottle went down the drain in the kitchen sink and then Arno turned back with his hands curled into fists, waiting for a reaction.

But nothing came for a long time. And in the end, his father only shrugged in a hopeless kind of way and said, "Your mother's dead."

Arno had never even once met his mother. There were no pictures in the house, his father didn't tell stories about her, it was like she had never even existed. When he was little, Arno had thought he must have just popped out of an egg like a baby chicken without a mother. He knew better now (because he was six, which was practically grown up and not little at all), but he still didn't know anything about his mother except she went away a long time ago and her name was Marie.

"Wasn't she already dead?" Arno asked.

"She was alive," his father said. "She was very alive. More alive than me. She's always made everyone around her look like shadows."

"I don't get it."

"You would if you met her," his father said. "Which you never fucking did, because she ran."

Arno put his hands over his ears, frowning so hard it felt like it was going to pull his face off. He didn't know what that f word meant but he knew Kadar had heard it somewhere and said it once in front of Desmond, and Desmond had made him wash his mouth with soap even though Desmond usually always said mean words around Kadar (and Malik wrote angry letters about it if he found out) so that one was bad.

"Just go away," his father said. "You've always been good at that. You must have learned it from her."

Arno fled before his father was even done talking.


	13. Chapter 13

The funeral was the next afternoon. They'd waited for Arno's father, apparently, to come back before burying her and Arno wished they hadn't. Then he wouldn't have to wake up early and dress in the stiff suit he'd only worn once (to try it on) and go to the funeral of a woman he'd never met.

He'd seen funerals on TV before. It always rained, so Arno was surprised that it wasn't raining today. It was a little chilly but not too bad, totally dry and not a cloud in the sky. Arno didn't say anything on the ride out and neither did his father. When they parked in the parking lot, though, Arno asked, "Aren't we supposed to go to the cemetery?"

"Later," his father said dully. "First the wake, then the service, then the funeral." He sat back and rubbed at her face. "Then a horrible lunch with her god awful family before we finally get to go home."

Arno shivered in the back seat and decided not to ask any more questions.

It was crowded inside, and Arno didn't have trouble slipping away from his father. He weaved through the field of legs that formed a living obstacle course and stood at the edge of the room, next to a big poster full of pictures. They were all of the same woman, with bright eyes and blonde hair. Arno stared at the pictures, trying to find… something.

"Hey, sweetie." Arno jumped a little as a strange woman bent down next to him. "Are you lost? Do you know where your mommy and daddy are?"

Arno nodded without taking his eyes off the ground. "I'm…" He spotted his father near the door and didn't want to talk to him. "Going to see my momma now."

The woman let him go without protest, and Arno crept his way closer to the coffin. It was at the front of the room, lit by soft orange lights and surrounded by flowers. Arno had to stand on his toes to see the woman inside.

She was pretty, except for being dead. Arno had heard dead people were supposed to look like they were just sleeping, but his mother didn't look like that. Too… still, maybe. He didn't know what he had been expecting to see but this wasn't it. He wanted to see what his father had seen, what all these people that had come to the funeral (wake?) had seen too.

But she was like nothing in that coffin, like nothing at all. Arno was used to seeing visions. Even after more than a year of Ezio helping to try and get them under control, Arno was still used to seeing little visions pop up around people. It was just a thing that happened that he didn't usually pay much attention to anymore. Only there was nothing here, in the coffin, except a dead body. It just sat there, like a chair or a lamp without a real future.

Arno didn't spend a lot of time thinking about death. It was something that he knew about, something that he'd always known about, because he'd been seeing visions of Shay killing his father since before Arno was old enough to walk. But that was… far away still. It was the _future_ , and Arno had never really thought… he never thought about his daddy dying, about what that meant, about what would happen after.

He must have hit a dozen people running across the room to get to his daddy, but he ignored the complaints and protests. When he hit his daddy (literally, he had his head down and wasn't looking where he was going), Arno stumbled back and shook his head, a little dazed from the fall. There were people all around them, staring at the scene like they'd done something wrong.

"Daddy…" Arno whimpered. He had spent a whole year being _mad_ at his daddy for leaving, and since he'd come home last night smelling like Desmond's bar and acting funny, Arno had been scared too. But now he wanted-

"This isn't the time or the place for running around, Arno," his daddy said.

He didn't want _that_. "She's dead!" Arno shouted.

"Go wait in the car," his daddy said, and Arno was more than happy to go running out of the room, and out of the whole building. He stopped next to the wall and leaned against it, shivering even though the weather was warm and he was dressed up nice in too many clothes.

Then he thought about things. There was a dead body in that building that used to be his mommy. And now she was just a cold dead thing in a box. That was going to be his daddy someday. Someday _soon_. Maybe one year, or two? His daddy didn't look much different in the visions than he did now. But it would be worse when his daddy died because he wasn't just a thing in a box, Arno _knew_ him. He remembered lots of good times with his daddy, and even though things were bad right now, Arno hadn't completely given up on the idea of the good times coming back someday. He missed running through puddles in the rain until they were both soaked, or playing board games under the dining room table because the carpet was brand new and squishy, or being read to at night until he fell asleep. Those days wouldn't come back if his daddy died.

But there was no 'if' about it. He'd seen his daddy die in a vision, and his visions always came true. What was he supposed to feel about that? He didn't _want_ his daddy to die, but if he had to pick between his daddy and Shay, he would much rather have Shay. Because his daddy _used to be_ nice, but Shay _was always_ nice and didn't tell him to go away and didn't say mean things. Was that bad, to think like that? He didn't know what to think or what to feel anymore.

"Arno?" And he was so, so happy when he heard Shay's voice in front of him.

"What are you doing here?" Arno asked, rubbing at the tears on his face. He hadn't noticed that he was crying until he tried to talk and tasted salt on his mouth.

"Ezio just called me and said I should head down here," Shay said. He sounded only vaguely confused, maybe because he was getting used to being surrounded by psychics asking for weird favors. "Why are you here?"

"My mommy died," Arno said. "Daddy's being mean about it."

"I'm sure he's just hurting right now," Shay said softly. "Some people aren't good at dealing with loss."

"I never saw a dead person before," Arno said. "It's sad. Um."

"Um?"

"Why are you going to kill my daddy?"

But Shay only shook his head and squeezed Arno's shoulder. "I wish I knew, Arno," he said. "I really do. But all I know is what you've told me."

"I don't want him to die," Arno sniffed. "I want him to be okay! I just want things to be like they used to be."

-/-

"Nope." Altair caught Malik by the arm and pulled him back before he could take another step toward the research tower. "Not today, kid."

"You let me help yesterday!"

"I let you sit around and watch yesterday," Altair said. "And you agreed not to let anyone else know about that."

"Who would I tell?" Malik said dismissively.

"I don't know. Your classmates. Friends."

Malik gave him a look and shook his head. "So I didn't tell anyone. Why won't you let me help- fine, _watch_ \- again today?"

"Trust me," Altair said. "You don't want to be in there today. I don't even want to be in there today. Actually, I'm _not_ going in there today. I'm taking the day off and going into town to run errands."

"But _why_?" Malik complained.

"Because Hope Jensen is using my lab today," Altair said. "You know her?"

"Sorta."

"Okay, well, she stole my space for the day."

"Doesn't she have her own space?"

"It's a long story."

Malik put his hands on his hips and Altair had to try _hard_ not to laugh at the expression on his face. "We both know you're going to tell me eventually, so how about you save me some effort and just tell me now?"

"I know no such thing," Altair said.

"Tell me!"

"Naw."

He turned to walk away, smiling at the sound of Malik's footsteps following him, almost running to keep up. So maybe this kid was starting to grow on him, just a little. Of course he was following. He didn't seem capable of letting things go. "Hope used to have a boyfriend," he said.

"What, really? Her?"

"I know," Altair agreed. "She's kind of a bi- a big jerk. Now, anyway. She used to be nicer, I guess, but she had an extremely bad breakup. He- it's complicated. He's dangerous, she got hurt. Anyway, ever since then she's been spending a lot of her spare time working on this… other project. A way to protect herself from her ex if he ever tries to hurt her again."

"A gun might be easier," Malik said drily.

"It's a weird situation," Altair said. "Her ex can hit people with other universes, and that's really unhealthy. It caused some bleeding in her brain that almost killed her and it basically turned her into a shell of who she used to be. It's sad, and that's why a lot of us don't trust Cormac anymore."

" _Shay_ Cormac?" Malik demanded. "The one that hangs out with your brother. And with _my_ brother?"

"Believe it or not, I trust Desmond more than I mistrust Shay," Altair admitted. "Your brother is safe."

"How can you say that?" Malik demanded. "How do you defend against something like another universe?"

"By not pissing him off, I guess," Altair grumbled. "But it's actually funny you should ask that, because that's exactly what Hope is working on. She's trying to find a way to keep what happened to her from happening to anyone else. Officially, she was banned from looking into anything related to alternate universes. We all were, actually, there's a blanket ban on that subject here, and breaking it is grounds for immediate dismissal. But… Hope got really badly hurt. She's not going to be able to feel safe again until she finds a way to keep all this from happening again. We all know about it, and we look the other way. Even Achilles."

"So that's what she's doing today? Why is she doing it in your lab instead of hers?"

"Believable deniability, I think. She doesn't know we know what she's doing, and she doesn't want it traced back to her if anyone finds out."

"But everyone know."

"She doesn't know that we know. And it helps her feel better, I think." He grinned and nudged Malik, which made the boy scowl. "And hey. At least I get a day off."

-/-

Shay took Arno home, after texting Charles to tell him where his son was. Arno was a quivering heap of too many emotions in the seat behind Shay, trying to figure out how to feel when faced with death for the first time. Shay didn't know what to say to make it better, and Arno seemed to be working his way up to a meltdown. A well-deserved one maybe, but Shay still wasn't in the mood to deal with it.

"Shay?" Arno said in a tiny little voice as they got close to the house.

"Yea?"

"I…" but Shay never found out what Arno was going to say, because suddenly the boy gasped and perked up. "Shay! Shay! My friends are here!" He pointed at the driveway as it came into sight, and sure enough there was a whole group of cars waiting there. "What are they doing?"

"I don't know," Shay said. "Let's go find out, shall we?"

Arno got out of the car as soon as it stopped and he ran to the front door. By the time Shay joined him inside the house, Arno had been swept up by Kadar and Elise and carried along, up the stairs to his bedroom. Shay could hear the occasional thump and whispered voices, so he assumed they were doing okay.

But downstairs were Gist, Ezio, Leonardo, and Desmond. "Okay," Shay said. "Not that I'm not happy you're here, but why are you here?"

"Ezio called us all up and told us to circle the wagons," Desmond said.

"I didn't see the whole picture," Ezio said. "But I figured we needed to be here."

"You were right," Shay said. "Arno just found out his mother is dead. Charles came home yesterday, and I assume told Arno his mother was dead. I don't know, all Arno would tell me is that his dad was being mean. Which could mean anything, quite frankly."

"Geeze," Desmond muttered. "I found an open bottle in the kitchen. The strong stuff, mostly empty. If he's had that much just since yesterday, then that would more than explain him 'being mean'."

"Grief is complicated," Leonardo said. "Some people don't deal with things well."

"Yea, well, those people better not have my kid," Shay muttered. He headed to the kitchen to find the bottle Desmond had mentioned, which took longer than he had expected. It was hidden inside a cabinet so tall Shay couldn't reach it without standing on his toes, and Shay made a face at the smell. He had turned to drinking himself in the past, when he was upset, but there was a difference between a few nights spent moping and what looked like a purposeful attempt to methodically destroy the liver.

"What are you going to do when Charles comes back?" Gist asked when Shay had finished dumping the shit down the sink. He was leaning against the wall next to the microwave, face impassive and voice unusually serious when Shay turned back around to look.

"I don't know."

"You're not going to kill him over this, are you?" Gist asked the question like it was perfectly reasonable. Because in this scenario, it was.

"No," Shay said. "Not now, not because of this. I'm not enough of an ass that I can kill someone because they're having a hard time grieving for their dead wife." He glanced sideways at Gist. "I keep wondering what's going to do it though. Is this it? Is this going to make me angry enough to kill him? Or is there something worse coming in the future? Sometimes I lie awake at night and I try to think what this man might do that would be the tipping point, you know? Sometimes I think of these big, heroic scenarios where he's the bad guy and I'm saving the day." He laughed bitterly. "Stupid, right? Or maybe Charles is going to be hurt or something. I could take a mercy killing, if I had to. It would be better than most of the other options. But then sometimes I think… what if it's just like this? He does something that pisses me off, and no one's around to stop me? And I…" His arms were shaking and he leaned forward over the sink to steady himself. "How am I going to do it? Gun? Knife? A fight? Self defense, maybe, that would almost be a relief-"

"Stop, Shay." Gist stepped forward and put his hand on Shay's elbow. "Do you know why you're the only one worrying about this? Because the rest of us trust you. Arno is a child. Whatever he saw, I believe he isn't old enough to understand the full story. I trust you, and I trust that there's some explanation that makes this all make sense."

"That's a lot of trust," Shay said. "I don't trust myself that much."

"That's what friends are for then, I guess."

" _God_ ," Shay whispered, staring at the sink.

"Hey." Gist elbowed him, obviously trying to lighten the mood a little. "And since when is Arno your kid?"

"Since now." Shay shook his head, a twitchy gesture that made the growing pain in the back of his head worse. "Ezio called me, you know. Must have been right before he called the rest of you, he said I should go to the funeral home. And I got there, and I saw him all on his own in the parking lot, leaning into the wall of the building like he wanted it to swallow him up. And his dad was nowhere." He checked his phone and saw nothing but a notification that half a dozen apps needed updating. "And he's still nowhere, apparently."

"If you're that worried about him, why don't you do something about it?" Gist suggested. "Call someone. I mean, the man's hardly ever home and when he actually is here, he's not much of a dad. You could probably make an argument for Arno to be taken away from him."

"First of all, no," Shay said. "There's no hard evidence of abuse or neglect or anything. If anything, I keep seeing that Charles is _trying_. Not as hard as I want him to, not hard enough to make a difference, but he's trying. And second, the one that suffers the most in that scenario is Arno. I'm not dragging him into court to be stared at and poked and prodded."

"Then just… keep doing what you're doing," Gist said. "You're good for him."

"Well, so are the rest of you," Shay said. He made an effort to pull himself back up, because there were people counting on him and he'd learned from many a sleepless night in the past year that if he let himself start to dwell on things, it would only get worse. "And thanks for coming here for him tonight, I really appreciate it."

Gist patted him on the back. "Yea," he said. "And you should know that when Ezio called and said to come here, he didn't tell me Arno needed help. He said both of you did."

"Gist-"

But Gist was headed for the other room. "I'm going to order some pizzas," he shouted over his shoulder. "Quit moping and get in here or I'm ordering mushrooms on them."

Shay took a deep breath, steadying himself. He couldn't afford to feel so helpless right now, and with friends in the other room and _his kid_ safe upstairs, maybe just maybe he didn't have to.

"I hate mushrooms," he shouted at Gist's retreating back ("I know!") and he hurried out of the kitchen to make sure something decent made it to the house for dinner.

-/-

"It's not a very good fort," Kadar complained. It was later, after pizza, and he was standing on Arno's stripped bare bed, looking at the tangled mass of blankets and furniture that had started out as a tent and turned into a fort when it accidentally got too big.

"Well maybe your standards are too high," Elise said. She was in the hallway (because there was no space in the bedroom to stand) with Arno, her fingers tangled tightly together with his. She hadn't let go since they got there, even when holding onto him almost made them trip and tear down the whole fort. He didn't care, because she was stronger than him at the best of times, and this was definitely _not_ the best of times.

"It needs a moat," Kadar said, and there was a spark in his eyes as he said it that meant trouble. "A good fort _has_ to have a moat, or how are we supposed to keep the bad guys out? We could go to the bathroom and use the shower to-"

"No," Arno and Elise said at the same time.

"It'll be fun!"

"That's what you said when you wanted to build a treehouse in the backyard," Arno reminded him.

"Yea," Kadar said. "And that _was_ fun."

"Until you got stabbed by a nail and cried like a baby," Elise said in a sing song voice.

"I didn't cry," Kadar said seriously. "My eyes were leaking."

"Leaking tears!"

Kadar stuck out his tongue and Elise stuck out hers and Kadar crossed his eyes and Arno laughed at both of them. "It's a good fort," Arno said. "It's big and we built it better this time so it's not gonna fall down again. Thanks."

"Kadar!" Desmond shouted from downstairs. "It's late, we need to get going!"

"No!" Kadar shouted back.

"Yes!"

" _No!"_

Instead of continuing to argue, Desmond came upstairs and crossed his arms and watched Kadar squirm until he got too uncomfortable and tip toed his way around the fort to the door. "Fine," he grumbled.

"Thank you," Desmond said politely. "Hey, Elise, everyone else is getting ready to leave too, and Ezio said he'd give you a ride back if you want."

She nodded and hugged Arno for a second, then kissed him on the top of his head.

"Ew, gross," he complained. Then, "Stop being so tall."

"Grow up," she told him cheerfully, and let go. "See you tomorrow?"

"See you tomorrow," he agreed.

"Bye!" Kadar shouted, and then Arno was alone. But not for long, because as soon as the last of the cars had pulled out of the driveway, Shay came upstairs. His footsteps were slow and purposeful on the stairs, and he smiled a little when he saw Arno.

"You made a fort," he said when he saw the mess in the room.

"Do you wanna try it out with me?"

"No, Arno, I'm too tall-"

"Please?"

Shay caved almost at once and bent down to look at the opening. "I don't want to knock it down."

"You won't!" Arno insisted. He gave Shay a little push. "You first."

Shay crawled inside and once he had settled, Arno crawled in after him. It was dark under the tent and a little crowded (because okay, maybe Shay was a little too big). But it was warm and safe under there and Arno curled up close to Shay's chest. "I don't think daddy's coming home tonight," he whispered.

"No," Shay whispered back. "Probably not."

"That's okay," Arno said. "He's scaring me."

"Don't be scared." Shay took Arno's hand in his bigger one and changed the subject. "You know, I remember building a fort like this when I was a kid."

"Really?"

"Oh yea. I remember it was raining really hard, the worst thunderstorm I'd ever seen."

"Were you scared?"

"Yep."

"I thought you were never scared."

"Well I was even littler than you," Shay said. "My dad was stuck at work, and the streets were all flooding so he couldn't get home. My mom knew I was scared, especially after the electricity went out. So she took out all our flashlights and set them up in the living room, and we built a really big tent. We used all the sheets in the house."

"Did you have any brothers or sisters?"

"Nope. Just a dog, and she was hiding under my parents' bed. Anyway, so my mom helped me build this fort, and then we got inside, and she told me that this fort was made out of stone and iron. It was strong, as strong as it needed to be to keep all the scary things in the world away."

"Did it work?"

"Oh yea," Shay said. "We stayed in there all night, and in the morning the storm was gone, and we were safe again."

The word _safe_ echoed around in Arno's head until he finally fell asleep.

-/-

Shay left as soon as Arno was asleep. He went downstairs, and sat in the dark next to the front door, and waited. Sometime after one in the morning, he saw headlights in the driveway and heard the gentle sounds of a motor sputter and then die. He waited, heart pounding in his chest, while Charles tried two or three times to make the door work. He finally got the door open and stood there swaying for a second. It was obvious that he had been drinking.

Shay, trying not to think how horribly cliché this must be, reached for the lamp next to his chair and switched on the lights.

"Wha-"

"Don't talk," Shay said, and somehow saying the words out loud made him go utterly calm. This needed to be said, and nobody else was going to say it. "Listen. You're a decent man, by all accounts. But you're a godawful father. I understand that you're in pain. I mean, your wife runs away from your newborn son and then just dies without warning a few years later? I can understand how that would suck. But you need to sober up, and stop treating your son like it's his fault. Today, you took Arno to the funeral of a woman he's never met and told him that she's his mother. He's never been to a funeral before, he's never met his mother before, and you expected him to be okay with this."

"It-"

"You need to clean up your act," Shay went on. The words were like chips of ice, burning his mouth and cutting bloody lashes across his tongue with every word. He couldn't believe he was sitting here, in another man's living room, threatening him while his son slept in a tent made out of star wars sheets. "You need to give that kid what he deserves. You need to stop with this stupid pity party you're drowning in. Dump the alcohol, have a good cry, and then stop torturing your son because _you_ feel like shit."

"Or _what_?" Charles asked, belligerent and angry from alcohol and grief . "Where do you get off, telling me how to live my life? Who _are_ you, that you have any authority?"

Shay stood up, and walked very slowly and very deliberately away from the light, toward Charles, until they were less than six inches apart. The two of them were the exact same height when they faced each other in the midnight darkness of the living room. "I'm the man that's going to kill you," he said. "My friends tell me that it's going to be an accident, you know? Because they say I'm a good man, and they can't see it happening any other way. But I'm not so sure. See, when you treat Arno like he doesn't even matter, that makes me wonder. I look at you, and I see a man that can't be trusted around his own child, who turns to drinking as an answer to his problems, who tries and tries and only succeeds in making life miserable for one of the very few people left in this world that I care about. And then I start to wonder if maybe you don't deserve to be dead." He shouldered his way past Charles, hitting him hard enough that the other man almost fell.

He stopped in the doorway and turned back long enough to say, "Just think about it."

And then he was gone. He got in his car, drove three blocks away, then pulled over and turned off the headlights. For a long time, Shay sat there on the side of the road, trying to figure out how much of what he'd said had been meant as a warning to scare Charles into behaving himself around Arno, and how much of it he'd actually _meant_.

-/-

Arno woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of raised voices. He was lying with his ear against the floor because all his bed stuff had been borrowed for fort stuff, so he could hear the voices even if they did sound muffled. He heard Shay shout for a while, then a door slam closed, and for a long time silence.

When the crying started, he went downstairs.

His daddy was sitting on his favorite chair in the dining room, shoulders shaking as he cried. The room was completely silent, draped in middle of the night darkness like a heavy black cloth. Arno should have been able to hear crying, but it had gone almost completely silent.

He crept forward, a foot or two at a time, until he got to the chair next to his daddy.

He kept thinking how lonely his daddy looked, sad and shriveled up and small, alone at the kitchen table in his fancy funeral clothes that were rumpled from wear. Arno stepped out from behind the chair, trying to be brave and not hide anymore. He tugged at his daddy's sleeve until he gave under his grip and followed him upstairs.

When they got to Arno's bedroom, his daddy groaned and shook his head. "Arno," he said. "You made a mess."

"It's not a mess," Arno said. "It's a fort. And it's really super strong, okay? You have to pretend a little, but it's made out of stone and iron, and it's really strong. Okay? So it can keep you safe from all the bad things in the world. Promise."


	14. Chapter 14

"Arno, you need to pay attention."

But Arno was tired, curled up on the couch in the basement with his eyes half closed. "No," he complained. "No, I don't want to…"

"Your father doesn't pay me to sit here and watch you sleep," Ezio teased. But the smile dropped out of his voice when Arno didn't move. It was just the two of them in the house, because Leonardo had finished his lessons an hour ago and taken Kadar and Elise with him. Neither of them needed to learn anything from Ezio, as they weren't psychic, so Arno had private lessons in the afternoons when the other three were gone. Normally, he enjoyed them. Today, he could barely keep his eyes open.

"Can we do this tomorrow?" he asked, when Ezio didn't say anything.

"Nope," Ezio said. But he moved next to Arno on the couch, and poked and prodded at him until he moved into a sitting position. "What's wrong, Arno? You've been out of it for weeks now."

"I dunno."

 _"Arno_."

"I haven't been sleeping a lot," Arno mumbled. "I have to watch daddy."

"For what?"

"He cries a lot," Arno said. "He cries, and then sometimes he gets mad and sometimes he feels better. But if I don't go find him when he starts crying he gets more and more upset."

"It's been more than a month since your mother died," Ezio said like that even mattered. "Is he still having a hard time with that?"

"Sometimes," Arno said. "Less than at the beginning. But he doesn't know how to be sad, I think? He cries about everything, even little things. I try to help him but I don't know what to say and sometimes I can make him feel better but sometimes I make everything worse…"

"That's why you're not sleeping?"

"I sleep sometimes."

"Is your dad sleeping?"

"Not as much."

"Well are you both eating?"

"Yea," Arno said, relieved to be able to finally answer something in a way that Ezio would like. "Shay comes by after work every day and brings food."

"Good. Do you want me to call him, see if you can sleep over tonight?"

Arno shook his head. "I don't want to leave daddy by himself tonight. Or ever. Can I tell you a secret, Ezio?"

"Sure."

"I think daddy's going to die really soon," Arno said. "Because he looks really old in my vision where he dies, but lately he's been so upset it's like he's getting old super fast, and he…he just looks almost the same."

"Did you tell your dad?"

"No." Arno shook his head miserably. "But I think he figured it out. He's so sad, and he doesn't want to talk about Shay at all, and he- it's like he _knows_. Ezio, is there a way to find out exactly when a vision is going to happen?"

"Unfortunately not," Ezio said. "You're pretty much doing what I would do. Trying to match up ages, situations, whatever clues you can get."

"But how do I stop it?" Arno insisted. "You _told me_ you saved your family, why can't I save my daddy? If he lived, he would be happier, and everything would be good again."

"There are a lot of reasons," Ezio said. "First of all, it takes a long time to learn how to do things. Years. I was a lot older than you are now when I figured out how to do it. And even if you were able to understand how to do something like this, you wouldn't have enough energy. You would kill yourself trying and in the end it wouldn't even make a difference. You wouldn't be able to do enough to help anyone."

"Then you do it!"

"It's not my vision." Ezio's voice was gentle, which didn't make the words any easier for Arno to hear. "I can't do anything at all."

Arno hadn't really expected anything else, and he was too tired to kick up more of a fight. He just groaned and shook his head. "It's going to be so soon," he said. "And I can't even stop it."

Ezio nodded, then got up and waved at Arno to follow him. "Hit me," he said, when Arno had reluctantly done so. Arno only stared at him like he was insane (because obviously he _was_ ), which made Ezio actually smile a little. "I'm not crazy," he said. "Just hit me."

"But I don't wanna hit you," Arno said. "Why would I wanna hit you?" Ezio didn't exactly answer, but he reached out and shoved Arno a little. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to make him fall back a step or two. "Hey," Arno complained. Ezio pushed him again, and Arno frowned. "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" But while Ezio's little pushes were annoying, it was his smile that made Arno angry enough to actually do what Ezio had told him, and hit back.

And somewhere along the way, it stopped being about hitting Ezio, and just felt good. Arno kept hitting and hitting until somehow everything felt a little bit better. He sagged against Ezio's chest, fists balled up in the man's shirt, breathing heavily.

"Feel any better?" Ezio asked.

"A little," Arno admitted. "Sorry."

"Naw." Ezio smiled at him and poked his side. "You didn't hurt me at all. I just know that sometimes, it's really hard to deal with the things you see. Especially the bad things that happen to the people you love. Sometimes you need to just punch something until you stop hurting."

"Yea," Arno agreed quietly. "Can we do that again someday?"

"Maybe I'll see about putting you in some kind of self-defense class or something," Ezio said. "I don't think your dad would mind."

"Yea." Arno shrugged and didn't look at Ezio. "Doesn't seem like he cares about anything as much as he used to anymore."

-/-

Arno didn't feel all the way better after hitting Ezio, but it did help. Except he felt bad about wanting to hit someone to feel better, so maybe the two feelings canceled each other out? It was just another thing that was hard to understand.

Either way, in the week since Ezio had let Arno hit him over and over again, Arno had started to sleep better at night- Ezio said it was just getting frustration out, but Arno felt like it was more than that. Like he'd pounded out a little bit of his anger and fear at the same time.

And oh _yes_ he felt better. He even stayed awake during lectures now, even when Leonardo started talking for a really long time about things that he was obviously really excited about but boring for everyone else. Like today, for example. Kadar had asked a question about magic, about how come some people had special things that they could do, that most other people couldn't. He'd looked at Arno when he said it, and Arno had stuck out his tongue at Kadar. And at the shimmering vision of future Kadar behind him, because Arno hadn't quite gotten the hang of holding off visions he didn't want to see.

"That's a good question," Leonardo said, nodding approvingly at Kadar. "And it's a little complicated, but you I think you three can handle it."

Arno smiled when Elise shifted a little in her chair, leaning forward eagerly. She always wanted to learn, anything and everything. Arno just stayed where he was and waited for Leonardo to explain better.

"When two parents have a child," Leonardo started. "They pass some things onto their kid. It's called genetics, and… well, I'll simplify a little bit. With magic, you can either have a _yes_ gene, or a _no_ gene. Now, some kinds of magic, you can do no matter what magic gene you have. Enchantments, alchemy, potions. Normal stuff like that. But the unusual stuff needs a _yes_ gene. Can you give me some examples of what that means? People that can do things most of us can't?"

"Oh!" Arno smiled and waved his hand through the air like a flag. "Me! Psychic!"

"Someone less obvious," Leonardo said.

"Ezio?" Kadar suggested.

"Someone that's not a psychic," Leonardo said patiently.

"Daddy?" Arno said tentatively.

"Yes," Leonardo said. He sounded pleased this time. "A high mage can do things the rest of us can't. Cast spells, for example, so they can do a whole range of things that the rest of us can't."

"My brother told me that Desmond's brother can control the weather," Kadar piped up, and Leonardo nodded again. After naming a couple other people that were famous or otherwise household names, Leonardo held up his hand to stop them.

"Those are all good examples. So-"

"Wait," Elise interrupted. "If parents pass magic to their kids, how come Arno is a psychic and not a high mage like his daddy?"

"Because that gene doesn't guarantee that people will have the same power," Leonardo said. "It just says the kid will have _some_ kind of magic, not exactly _what_ kind."

"So Arno's babies might have some other power?"

"Yuck!" Arno interrupted before Leonardo could say anything. "I'm not having babies!"

Leonardo opened his mouth to interrupt, then shook his head and half laughed as he let them continue arguing about babies. Arno glanced back at the door and was not at all surprised to see Ezio had shown up. Leonardo always got happier when Ezio was around. After a few minutes, Arno got up and went over to the two teachers. This was the part of the day when he usually had to go off by himself with Ezio, but today Leonardo and Ezio were distracted by their own conversation.

"…according to him, the have the same genetics," Leonardo was saying. "I suppose it's technically possible."

"Well wouldn't we know?" Ezio asked. "If Desmond had the same powers as his brother, or _any_ powers, for that matter, wouldn't we know by now?"

"Maybe he just doesn't want us to see," Leonardo suggested. "Or he doesn't like whatever his powers are. Or-" he spread his arms in a gesture that said he didn't know but it wasn't his business anyway. "I don't know. That potion they used hasn't been widely used since before genetics were developed. We don't know what that would do to magic."

"I guess," Ezio said doubtfully.

Leonardo patted him on the shoulder, which Arno thought seemed to cheer Ezio up more than it should have. "Don't worry," he said. "If it's important, he'll tell us himself."

"What are they talking about?" Elise whispered, coming to stand next to Arno.

"Dunno," Arno said. "Something about Desmond, I think?"

"Oh." Elise didn't know Desmond very well, and Arno could hear the interest in her voice drying up. "Well, that sounds boring. Come on, me and Kadar are going to steal cookies while they're not paying attention."

Arno nodded enthusiastically and followed the two of them back into the kitchen.

-/-

There was a bad feeling around the homestead these days. Achilles was ill, seriously so, and it was having an effect on everyone, from the oldest and most connected members of the staff, to the youngest and most naïve students. Liam had gotten used to walking down the halls or through the rest of campus in absolute silence, people talking in whispers if they spoke at all, looking at the ground to avoid making eye contact. It was like walking through a funeral.

He was feeling it himself on the afternoon he walked into his office and found Hope waiting for him, sitting behind his desk like she owned the place. There were days when Liam felt bad for her and everything she'd been through, because after all Shay had come _that_ fucking close to ruining her life and her mind completely. So on days when she locked herself away to work on ways of stopping Shay from doing what he'd done before _ever again_ , Liam shut up and let her get on with it. Then there were days like today, when her face was like thunder and her eyes were on _fire_ with the determination to see herself through whatever problem she'd gotten herself into this time.

She'd always been like that, of course. Back when they'd all been in school together, Hope had regularly stolen Liam and Shay out of their beds in the middle of the night to go on adventures and stir up trouble. They'd planted (and later killed) a vegetable garden when they were eight, hidden a puppy in an empty classroom for six months when they were twelve, and spent most of their teenage years stealing (borrowing) cars to ride into the town fifteen miles away.

Now, Liam had no idea what she was planning, only that he wouldn't like it when he found out. "What's wrong?" he asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.

"Wow," Hope said. "Nice to see you too, Liam."

"But really, what are you doing here?" he asked. "You never just come by to talk anymore."

Hope looked at him, a flat and level look that expressed absolutely no amusement. "I've been busy," she said. "I had no idea you were such a child. How are you, Liam, did you want to talk about your feelings? Are you-"

"Alright, alright," Liam snapped. "I get it, you don't want to make small talk. Fine. I thought we were better friends than that, but apparently not."

"This isn't the time for friendships, Liam," Hope said. "Achilles is in the hospital, and William Miles is going in front of the school board to request that he be made interim head of the school."

"What?" Well that at least explained Hope's bad mood- she had been groomed to replace Achilles for practically as long as she had been at the school. Achilles had always liked her, and Liam had seen the amount of effort and time she'd spent over the years on learning what it took to run a place like this. William, on the other hand, was very technically skilled at magic, and extremely lacking in people skills. Everyone knew he'd driven his own son away by pushing him so hard toward learning magic, which some people thought showed his dedication to magical education, and others thought made him a dick.

Liam fell into the first group of people. Whatever his feelings about Hope at the moment, he would always side with her against William Miles. "How do we stop him?" he asked.

"I'm going down to argue that I should be put in place as interim head instead of William," Hope said. "He'll say that I don't have enough experience, I'll say I've been preparing for once since I was a teenager and that Achilles has said more than once that he wants me to take over after he's gone, William will make some kind of disparaging comment about Achilles's leadership abilities and then things will get ugly. More than likely, people will have to take sides. So I need to know, Liam, _where do you stand_?"

"With you," Liam said, without hesitation. "Listen, Hope, I'm sorry about what I said when I came in. I didn't realize there was something big going on. We've been friends forever, and I'll always be there for you when you really need it."

"Thanks, Liam." The muscles on her mouth twitched a little, Hope's attempt at a smile. Liam hadn't seen her really smile since before Shay nearly killed her, and watching that shaky tic, like a spasm across her face reminded Liam just how far they had come from the easy days when they were still in school. "I'm sorry for what I said, too."

"Good luck at the meeting," Liam said. He could still smile, and did. "I'll try to round up some support for you, too. It shouldn't be too hard, anyone that still thinks Achilles is a good leader knows he's been grooming you to take his place. They'll support you."

Hope nodded and grasped his elbow briefly before pushing him out of the room. "I'll see you tonight," she said.

"I'll buy you a drink," Liam laughed. "We'll either celebrate our success, or toast our impending unemployment."

She closed the door on him, and Liam could have sworn that she nearly smiled as she did so.

-/-

Desmond was three hours into a six hour shift when Shay burst through the doors, looking wild eyed and unhappy. "Desmond," he said, loudly enough that every other patron in the bar turned to look at him. "I need you to go to California with me."

"No," Desmond said. He made sure to keep his voice calm, because the second he started shouting, things were going to get worse and Shay would get angry and then there would be a scene. Quite frankly, Desmond had already had enough scenes at work, and he wasn't quite sure his job could survive another one.

"Yes," Shay insisted. "Just hear me out, I have a good reason."

"I don't care what your reason is," Desmond said. "I have a job, I have Kadar, and I can't afford to leave right now."

"Just… just listen." Shay reached across the bar and grabbed Desmond by the elbow as he tried to turn away. "Please."

"Fine," Desmond said, shaking the elbow away. "What?"

"Achilles had major surgery this morning," Shay said. "The doctors don't expect he'll be able to hang on more than a week, and he'll be on life support the entire time. His nurse called me this morning."

"Why?" Desmond asked, curious despite himself. "Why you?"

"Because he asked to see me." Shay dropped the arm that had been holding onto Desmond to the top of the bar, and fell into a seat in the same motion. "And I don't want to go alone."

"I don't want to go either," Desmond said, and for a second the fear of what was waiting for him in California overruled his common sense and the _fear_ trickled into his voice, making it almost a whine. He didn't think much about his father anymore, didn't spend a lot of time worrying about what would happen if they ever had to see each other again. But that didn't mean he was any less certain of what would happen- of course it would be messy, ugly, unhappy. It was just that he didn't have to dwell on it to know all that.

"Your father is trying to replace him," Shay said. "I know you don't care about the homestead much anymore. I don't even know if I do. But I thought you might care just enough to want to stop him from taking over."

"I do. That man shouldn't be around kids. Not ever. He can't be in charge." Desmond shook his head and hurried toward the back room.

"Where are you going?" Shay called.

"To call my boss," Desmond said. "Stay there, we're going to California as soon as my replacement gets here." He was halfway through the door when he stopped, hanging off the doorframe to stick his head out and call back to Shay. "And if anyone asks, I'm coughing up blood and you're rushing me to the emergency room."

"Got it," Shay said, and Desmond hurried away to make his call. Within half an hour, he and Shay were on the street outside and headed for the airport. Desmond had called Gist to try and get him to watch Kadar for a few days, despite his misgivings about Gist as a babysitter. His first choice was Shay, but since Shay was leaving as well, that was out of the question.

They paid way too much for two tickets leaving within the hour and joined the line of people waiting to get through security.

"We should have gotten a later ticket," Desmond said. He was practically vibrating with nerves by this point, much to the annoyance of the people both in front of and behind them. "It would have been cheaper and we wouldn't have missed the flight."

"We'll make it," Shay said.

"I don't have my passport on me," Desmond said. "Don't I need a passport to fly?"

"Not domestically," Shay said. He shot Desmond a critical look. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I'm just- there's not- I don't want to see my dad, and I don't-" he held up a finger to prevent Shay's interrupting, even as he opened his mouth to start saying something. "I _don't_ want you to tell me how childish that is. Because I know I shouldn't be afraid of him anymore, but the bastard has made his feelings about me perfectly clear, and this is not going to be a great reunion!"

" _Next!"_

Desmond froze, a pink tinge creeping its way up his neck and onto his face. The TSA officer glowering at him had clearly been trying to get his attention for some point, judging by her unamused expression and the clear frustration in her voice. "Sorry," he muttered, and shuffled forward to the front of the line.

"No bags?" she asked when he had stopped in front of her.

"No."

"Anything to declare?"

He shook his head, and she held up a stone, roughly the shape of an octagon with the corners rounded down from constant handling. It was maybe twice the size of a large coin, and hollow in the center. With her other hand, the officer grabbed Desmond by the palm (a little more roughly than was strictly necessary, probably because Desmond had been shouting and holding up the line a moment ago). She pushed the stone onto his middle finger, then quickly pulled it away again. The stone turned a very pale pink for a few seconds, before fading again to a natural, stony gray. The color was a reflection of his current mood and intentions, closer to angry-aggressive-not-allowed-to-board red than calm-safe-not-a-threat green. Not close enough to be a danger, apparently. The woman nodded and gestured him on.

Shay followed Desmond quickly through, the stone flashing green for him, and soon they were on the other side of security and heading to their gate. "Green," Desmond said. "Really? I know I'm probably more stressed and upset about this than you are, but I didn't think you were that calm."

"They invented that enchantment at Davenport," Shay said. "I know how to beat it, that's all."

"Well that's kind of an alarming hole in our national security," Desmond muttered. "Or something."

"Still better than the days of metal detectors and pat downs," Shay said. "Come on already, you were the one that was worried about making our flight a few minutes ago."

Desmond nodded and hurried after Shay as the man sped up, despite wanting nothing more than to drag his feet all the way to the boarding line.

-/-

Shay had half expected a welcoming committee on the other side of the flight, but there was no one there. Just the normal bustling crowds of the airport, going about their business as if this was an absolutely normal day. Shay stopped just on the other side of security, scanning the scene in front of him in search of anyone familiar.

"Maybe Achilles didn't tell anyone else he asked for you," Desmond suggested.

"Why would he do that?"

Desmond shrugged, and Shay snorted. No help at all, sometimes. But for all that Desmond had worried and fretted his way through the entire flight, Shay was still glad to have him along. This wasn't something he wanted to do alone, no more than Desmond wanted to see his father alone. It seemed like a fair enough trade.

"Let's get outside and grab a taxi or something," he said. "I have the name of the hospital Achilles is supposed to be staying at. We might as well head that direction." They started walking, following the overhead signs toward the exit and trying not to get lost in the maze of an unfamiliar airport. Mostly, they walked in silence, lost in their own worries about what they were going to see during the next few days.

"What do you want me to do, when we get to the hospital?" Desmond asked when they finally got into a cab. "Achilles didn't ask for me."

"I don't know." Shay hadn't thought that far ahead. "I'll go in and talk to him first, I guess. And then we'll go from there."

"I don't want to see my dad," Desmond said (again, and again, and _again_ ).

"Well hopefully you won't have to." He let the silence get ever so slightly uncomfortable, then asked, "Did you tell your brother you're back yet?"

"Yes." And for the first time that day, Shay actually saw him smile. "Although it's driving him crazy that he doesn't know why I'm here. I haven't told him you're here as well."

"Thanks."

Desmond nodded and went back to staring out the window. "I'm telling him after you're finished with whatever Achilles wants from you," he told the rolling scenery outside. "If I have to be here, I at least want to see him."

"Yea," Shay said. "Of course."

But he wasn't really thinking about Desmond and his father and his brother. He was thinking about his meeting with Achilles, right up until the point that they had been dropped in front of the hospital and directed to the right room.

"I'll wait out here," Desmond said, gesturing at a nearby waiting room. Then, to Shay's surprise, he hugged him. It was a quick gesture, firm but still somehow unsure. Shay was too busy being surprised to do or say anything, until after Desmond had added a "Good luck" and headed to a marginally less uncomfortable looking chair to wait. Shay took a deep breath, and went inside.

The old man apparently rated a private room, although it was not a large one. Shay had half expected to see something or someone already there, a gift from a student, perhaps, or the student themselves. But there was no one there but the old man and a nurse. Shay stood in the door, his muscles tense, bracing for impact like he was in a car speeding straight for a wall. Achilles looked up at him and Shay found himself completely frozen.

The nurse smiled at him (obviously she had no idea what the history was between the two of them) and quickly gathered up the medicines she'd been administering to Achilles. "I'll leave the two of you alone," she said, and Shay could tell from the voice that this was the same woman that had called him earlier. He put in an effort, but couldn't force himself to smile back at her as she left.

"Shay." Achilles's voice was quieter than Shay had ever heard it, but not weak. Even know, covered in wires and tubes and trapped in a failing body, there was iron instead of weakness in his voice. "Come closer."

"Why did you call me?" Shay asked (but he did move closer).

"Why did you come?"

There was absolutely no answer for that. Shay shouldn't have come, he was in danger here from people that had wanted to lock him up and study him, or punish him, or hide him. Whatever their motivation, the end result was the same. He would be locked up because he had been stupid and gotten himself cursed.

"I think you came for absolution," Achilles said, which forced a startled laugh from Shay.

"Forgiveness?" he demanded. "From you? How have I ever hurt you?"

"You nearly killed Hope," Achilles said. "Almost took her mind and her life. I think you came because you're still as much in love with her as you were when you were sixteen and sneaking away from school at night."

Shay thought briefly about lying, but there didn't seem to be much point in lying to a dying man. "Yea," he said. "I guess I am. But I know her better than to think she'll ever forgive me."

"Well. Maybe you're not as stupid as I thought."

The room went silent, apart from the slow beeping of machines keeping Achilles alive. Then Shay nodded. "Yea," he said. "Okay, maybe you're right. Maybe I missed her, and I thought this would be an olive branch. A step in the right direction. But no one else knows I'm here, do they?"

"No. I wanted to talk to you, and I didn't want anyone getting in the way of that happening."

"Fine." Shay sat in the empty chair next to Achilles's bed. He had come in here thinking he could handle whatever was going to happen, and in less than five minutes Achilles had started him questioning his own motives and feeling like a ten year old. "What did you want me for?"

"I'm dying," Achilles said calmly. "The doctors say I still have a chance, but they're lying. I'll be dead in less than a week. I've been thinking over a lot of my life, and the mistakes I've made. Such as you. You had an accident. It wasn't your fault, and I should have protected you from the consequences. I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry_?" Shay repeated. "I almost went crazy, too. I saw a million universes at once, and that _hurts_. When I woke up, everyone treated me differently, and just when things started to look like it _might_ be possible to _one day_ get my life back to normal, I screwed up again. I never wanted to hurt Hope, I didn't even know I _could_ do something like that. But no one wanted to hear it, they just wanted to talk about locking me up, or studying me, or…" He pushed at the chair's armrests and shook his head. "I was driven away from my home. Ended up in a city I'd never even seen, all on my own."

"Where you've apparently found friends, a life of your own, even a child. You're thriving, Shay."

"That doesn't make up for-"

"Alright then," Achilles said. "Hold onto your anger, see if it does you any good. I have more than an apology for you. I also have a warning."

"Which is?"

Achilles turned a little, coughing into his pillow and struggling for breath at the end of it. When he had finally gotten his breathing back under control, he narrowed his eyes and refocused on Shay. "There are two people vying for control of the school. They want my position when I'm gone, and while I favor one over the other, they will both be bad news for you. The first is William Miles. I'm sure you remember him."

"I do," Shay said. Desmond's father had lead the charge to have him captured and studied like an animal.

"And the other is Hope."

"The ex-girlfriend that I almost killed," Shay said, unenthusiastically. "A great second choice."

"Either way," Achilles said. "I have never gone after you. I let you run when I could have pulled you back. I'm not saying you should be grateful for this, or even that I made the right choice. I'm just saying that no matter who takes over in my place when I am gone, you will be in danger. I wouldn't be surprised if they came after you to bring you back and lock you away."

"I won't let them," Shay said. "I have a life now, and they don't have the right to pull it to pieces."

"Then run."

"I can't."

Achilles looked at him, an unreadable mix of frustration and anger on his face. "Then die," he said. "You've escaped them once, they won't risk you getting away from them a second time. They will take more drastic measures, this time." He shook his head, as if disappointed. "You always were stubborn, Shay, but I asked you here to help you. It's out of my hands, now."

Shay grunted and got up, moving toward the door. Achilles's harsh warning still echoing in his memory. Desmond caught him just outside the door, looking like he was trying hard not to show his fear. "Shay," he said, voice low and urgent. "My dad's on his way, we should go. Now, preferably."

 _Run, or die._

 **-/-**

 **A couple notes: First of all, I love when you guys review. I am by no means saying you have to review, or anything, just that the more reviews I get, the better I know what you guys want to read, and the better I can make this fic. Just saying, it helps to know what you're thinking.**

 **Second, updates will be slower now that I'm back at school because senior year is hard and so is figuring out how to live in an apartment instead of a dorm (I have bills, you guys, I have to pay _bills_ ). So that stuff is taking up a lot of my time.**


	15. Chapter 15

Altair had been the one to warn Desmond that his father was on the way. They'd been talking, excited at the idea of finally, after (way too many) years, getting to see one another again, and then Altair had asked what had brought Desmond back at last. So Desmond, of course, had explained the whole thing about Achilles and Shay and flying out to California, and in exchange he'd gotten a sudden, sharp spike of fear from Altair. It wasn't the first time Desmond had felt something like this, but it hadn't happened since the time they were thirteen and Altair had almost drowned during swim class at the gym.

 _"What's wrong?"_ Desmond had asked, and Altair had said, _"Your dad's on his way there."_

So… that had happened. Now he was with Shay, trying to find the way out of the hospital that had the least chance of accidentally running into William Miles. Only the hospital was a big, sprawling mess of a place, and there was no good way to predict what route a person would take to get to any particular place. Desmond was a jangling ball of nerves the whole time, jittery and on edge because this was his father (only he wasn't technically his father anymore, not genetically since Desmond and Altair had taken the animus potion, and not in any other sense of the word since Desmond had run away at sixteen, and he didn't know which choice had pissed his father off _more_ but they had definitely both pissed him off).

And then there was Shay, grim faced and almost radiating anger, disturbingly calm on Desmond's right side. He was so very, very still, that was the worst part. Like a crouching predator, waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting piece of prey. Desmond wasn't the one Shay seemed about ready to jump at, but he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be next to the man when he snapped. For the first time in a while, he thought of all the stories he'd heard, from Altair, and from Liam, and from Shay himself, about the accident. And he wondered how dangerous he really was.

"Desmond," Shay said at last. They were on an elevator (quite possibly the slowest in the entire universe, Desmond thought), alone if only because Shay kept glaring out at everyone whenever the elevator stopped at a floor they didn't want. When he spoke, the word was blunt and heavy, falling like it was made of lead.

"Yea?"

"How did he _know_?"

"Know what?" The elevator doors slid (slowly) open. A woman started to get on. Shay glared at her. She reconsidered, and the doors slid closed again.

"Everything. Achilles knows where I live, what I'm doing, even about Arno. How?"

And suddenly Desmond felt sick to his stomach. Even when he and Shay had shared everything else, when he had told Shay where he had grown up and Shay had told him all about the accident, Desmond had never actually gotten around to telling Shay that he had been spying on him for Liam. He'd _meant_ to. In the year or so that had passed since that conversation, Desmond had opened his mouth to spill almost every day. But the longer he waited, the harder it was to imagine a world where Shay didn't hate him for keeping the secret. So Desmond had justified it to himself by thinking how much worse someone else would be, and trying to keep anything particularly private to himself.

"I…"

He didn't think Shay actually suspected him yet. He was angry, but at Achilles and William and maybe the rest of the world. Not Desmond. Not yet. But the moment Desmond trailed off, as he shifted guiltily away from Shay in the tiny space the elevator afforded, Shay's eyes hardened and he turned his glare away from the door and onto Desmond. He could see it, the moment Shay figured out where Achilles had heard about him, the shock on his face.

"You?" he asked, and there was no anger in his voice, the way there should have been. There was shock, and betrayal, and hurt. And those were so much worse. "But- why?"

Desmond didn't have a chance to answer before the elevators opened again, this time onto the ground floor. They both looked out, Shay already readying a glare, and then Desmond pushed at Shay and shouted. It wasn't even a word, he wasn't even trying for a word. In the sudden shock of seeing his father there, it was like his brain had just shut down every complicated thought in his head in self-defense.

Maybe that was why the next few minutes were such a blur. He remembered hallways and doctors, people shouting at them, and then-

Somehow, they started going back up again. Desmond didn't realize they'd made it all the way to the roof until they stopped moving, and Desmond started to calm a little. There was no sign of his father anymore, and even though Desmond knew he had to still be following, they at least had room to breathe now.

He leaned over, hands on his knees, panting ha rd. Next to him, Shay seemed barely out of breath. And angry. Yea, he definitely seemed angry. He recovered before Desmond, and suddenly he was there, pushing Desmond to the ground and planting a foot on his chest to keep him from getting up again.

"Did you think I wouldn't care?" he shouted. "That I would be okay with this?" Desmond winced as Shay's fist came shooting toward him, flinching away and closing his eyes- but Shay only hit the roof next to Desmond's face, hard enough to start bleeding, hard enough that little pieces of gravel flew out and hit Desmond in the face. "You're a coward, Desmond-"

"Stop!"

"No! How could you- all this time, I thought you were my friend. And you've just been spying on me, for _them_."

"Shay, no, stop it!"

"You-"

"Stop it, we don't have time!"

"I need an answer!" Shay shouted, so loudly that the words almost slurred together into one long roar.

"The answer is I am your friend!" Desmond shouted back. "I didn't know you when I agreed to start. But I heard things about you that made me think you needed to be watched. Liam contacted me, because he knew I lived in the area, and asked me to watch you. I needed the extra cash so I said yes. And then you know what happened?" He pushed Shay away, anger giving him an unexpected strength. "I met you, and you were a good guy. I started to feel bad about what I was doing."

"Obviously not bad enough."

"Will you shut up and think for a minute?" Desmond demanded. He wiped a handful of grit away from his face, speaking quickly because they really did not have time for this right now. "I wasn't the first person assigned to track you. The guy before me got bored, and the guy before him quit to become a wedding photographer. They would have kept sending more guys after me, and eventually someone would have been sent to follow you that wouldn't have liked you as much as I do. So yea, I've been telling Liam what's going on, and he's been filtering that in the reports he has to send to Achilles. He doesn't know where you live, where you work, Arno's name- how many other people do you think would have done that?"

"Are they paying you?" Shay demanded, ignoring Desmond's question.

"Thirty pieces of silver," Desmond said. "And it paid for your Christmas present last year, so don't even start."

Shay stared at him. For a second, Desmond regretted taking a joking tone, sure that he'd crossed a line and Shay was going to kill him, or… or shoot him full of alternate universes. Or something. Then, all at once, the hard edges of his face softened. "Fine," he said. "We'll talk about this more later, but for now- let's just get out of here."

And perfectly on cue, William Miles appeared at the top of the stairs, and let out a triumphant noise at the sight of the two of them.

"Shit," Shay cursed. "There's no way out of here."

"Do you trust me?" Desmond didn't look at Shay, because his father was still coming closer and that deserved all of his attention for the moment.

"You're asking me if I trust you?" Shay asked. "Now?"

"Yes!"

A moment of silence.

"Shay, do you-"

"Yes, fine! I trust you!"

"Then get behind me," Desmond ordered. "And whatever happens, _stay_ there."

He raised both hands, and for just a second, closed his eyes. _"Altair?"_

 _"I'm here."_ And by the quick response, Desmond could tell Altair had been paying attention. By the way he was gathering his magic together, Desmond could tell Altair already knew what he was thinking. Of course he did. Nobody knew him better than his brother, and Desmond couldn't help the surge of affection that rushed up inside him at the unshaking support, even when Desmond was planning something stupid.

 _"You'll help?"_

 _"Of course."_

"Desmond," his father called. He did not shout- he had never needed to shout in order to be heard. "I hope you're here because you've decided to come home."

"I hate you!" Desmond shouted. It was immature and emotional but Desmond didn't have enough space in his brain for maturity.

The sky had been clear a minute ago, but as Desmond pointed upward, clouds started to form there. Dark, low, and heavy, packed with rainwater. Thunder rolled, and Desmond felt something like ecstasy rolling through him. He didn't do this a lot. He didn't like magic, because his father was always pushing and pushing and pushing at him to be better. Even getting Altair's powerset when they used the animus potion hadn't helped. It was Altair's magic, not William's, but it was all still tarnished and-

 _"Focus, Desmond,"_ Altair warned.

 _"Right. Sorry."_

The point was, he'd only done this a handful of times before. He always forgot the way the magic seemed to crawl under his skin, hitting his nerves and making them _sing_ from the inside out. It was like a drug, or like falling in love with the wrong person- so dangerous he knew he should stop, but so powerful he couldn't help himself. That was why he needed his brother's help.

 _"I don't know how to do this,"_ he said, as thunder rumbled overhead and fat raindrops started to fall.

 _"That's okay,"_ Altair said. _"I do."_ Because Altair hadn't run away from all this. He had been born with a gift, and he'd embraced it. He was good at what he did, and after the years of practice he'd put in, he should have been. _"Let me in."_

Desmond smiled, a confident smile for the first time since they had walked into the hospital. Because there was his brother, in his head, and there was the magic, crawling over every inch of him, and the rain was just _pouring_ down.

-/-

Shay had heard Ezio and Leonardo speculating on whether Desmond had the same powerset as his brother (or maybe a different one, or none at all). Until now, Shay had never thought those arguments were anything more than academic. Now, they suddenly seemed important.

Desmond was making it rain. More than rain, really, storm. With lightning and thunder, wind and hail, a full blown thunderstorm like Shay had seen maybe once or twice in his life. But the entire thing was focused solely on William Miles. The roof in front of Desmond was flooding, gravel pouring over the edges of the roof as the storm washed it away.

For a long minute, Shay locked eyes with Miles. The man's eyes were narrowed in anger and helpless frustration. There was nothing he could do to get to the pair of them, and he knew it.

"Okay," Desmond grunted, and Shay realized the rain had stopped completely. William Miles was still struggling to get to his feet in the mess the water had left behind when Desmond pushed Shay toward the stairs and the two of them went running down as fast as they could.

"What's the next step in your plan?" Shay demanded, following Desmond still farther down. He stopped at the ground floor, but Desmond shook his head and pointed farther down. "There's a basement parking garage. Our ride's there."

"How do you suddenly know so much?" Shay asked. He had forgiven Desmond (as much as he could, anyway, mere minutes after finding out one of his best friends had been lying to him about… everything). But now that he knew, he couldn't help seeing everything Desmond did in a new light. He couldn't help questioning everything.

"My brother's on his way here," Desmond said. "To get us out. I would have asked first, but he… doesn't really take no for an answer."

"Fine," Shay said. "Anything, as long as it gets us away from here."

They waited for five agonizingly long minutes until a battered car pulled up in front of them, loud and echoing in the close space of the underground garage. Shay held back as the passenger side door open and a man got out, walked to Desmond, and hugged him tight. Desmond made a little noise and hugged back, an almost desperate gesture in its speed and abruptness. For a second, he reminded Shay in a weird way of Arno when he really needed comfort.

"So… I'm going to go ahead and assume this is your brother," Shay said, when the fear of being followed started to outweigh the awkwardness of interrupting. The two men broke apart, and now that Shay could see both of their faces, it was impossible not to see the freakish similarities.

They were the exact same height. Desmond was maybe five pounds lighter, but it was hard to tell. Their hair was the exact same shade, with the same cut and very nearly the same style. If Desmond hadn't still been wearing the clothes he'd been tending bar in, Shay might not have been able to tell which one was which. Then the driver's side door opened, and Shay forgot completely about Desmond.

"Liam?"

"Long time no see," Liam said. He opened his mouth, then closed it and opened it and closed it again, like he was trying to say something but didn't have the words. Finally, he managed to get out, "Hi."

"What are you doing here?" Shay asked. "Are you with Miles?"

"No," Liam said quickly. "No- I'm with you. With-" His face was red. "Altair told me what was going on."

"Do you still think I need to be watched?" Shay asked. "Controlled?"

"I think you need to leave," Liam said, avoiding the question entirely. "As soon as possible."

"Yea," Desmond said, and the twin nodded. "Is there room in here?"

"Better be," Liam said. "Everyone in!" They piled into the car, Liam driving again, and Shay in the passenger seat because Altair and Desmond were hogging the entire back. For a dozen blocks, Shay said nothing. He watched the scenery outside the window, muscles tensing as the sheer impossibility of the situation wormed its way into his brain.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked softly. This wasn't the way back to the homestead, but that didn't mean Liam wasn't planning something else.

"I'm taking you back to the airport," Liam said. His eyes flicked sideways to look at Shay, then back to the road in front of him. "Altair told me where you were."

"You _what_?" Desmond demanded. "Why?"

"Your dad was coming," Altair said, and Shay glanced over his shoulder at the pair of them. He would have sworn it was Desmond speaking, not his brother. They even _sounded_ the same. "I don't have a car, I had to do something."

"I'm not handing you to Miles," Liam said. "Or Hope. If Achilles were still in charge, we- might be having a different conversation right now."

Shay turned back to stare at him. After a long time, he said, "Thank you. I think."

"So- airport." Liam cleared his throat without looking at Shay. "You can go somewhere new. Pay with cash, go somewhere they'll never find you. Start over under a new name, lay low, get plastic surgery, I don't know-"

"No way," Shay said. "I'm going home."

"You can't!" Desmond protested from the back seat. Shay was pretty sure it was Desmond and not the brother, anyway. Without turning around again to look, he was just guessing based on the fact that the brother didn't seem to care much what happened to Shay, apart from how it directly affected Desmond. "They won't hold back now that they almost had you and Achilles is dying. They'll follow you home."

"I'm not leaving without saying goodbye to Arno," Shay said. "I'm not-" He made a face, suddenly, because the alternative was sobbing. " _Goodbye_."

"Shay?" Desmond asked softly.

"I just- I never realized what a heavy word that is," Shay said. He tried to laugh a little, like it didn't matter. "How am I supposed to tell him I'm never coming back? I can't go, if I leave him now, with his dad-"

"You can't _stay_ ," Liam said. "Are you serious, Shay? You were always so much smarter than this. You can't give up your life or your freedom for some kid!"

"He's not just some kid!" Shay shouted, and the shock of the noise in the confined space of the car was enough to nearly startle Liam off the road. "He's my kid, Liam! In every way that counts, and he needs me!"

"Calm down-"

"I won't!" But Shay did manage to drop his voice, and settle back in his seat with his arms crossed. "And I'm not leaving him, either."

Almost half an hour passed in silence. Every time Shay looked through the rearview mirror, he caught Altair and Desmond shooting significant looks at one another. He assumed they were talking telepathically, and it irked him only slightly that they were probably talking about him.

"Fine, then," Liam said. "I'll take you to the airport. You and Desmond will go back, see that kid that's so important to you. Altair and I will stay here and try to slow down anyone that goes after you. It won't work for long, but it might help you a little."

"Thanks," Shay grunted. It was the most civility he could manage at the moment. His whole mind was filled with goodbyes.

-/-

When Shay and Desmond had been dropped at the airport, Altair moved to the front seat to sit next to Liam. "What are we going to do?" he asked. "You do have a plan, don't you?"

"Sort of," Liam said. "I'm going to talk to Hope, you have to talk to Miles."

"I'm not his favorite person," Altair said, which was basically what Liam had expected. "He won't listen to me."

"Then use that," Liam said. "If he hates you, pick a fight, feed him false information on Desmond, whatever it takes."

"I'll figure something out." Altair snorted and looked over at Liam. "What about you and Hope? Can you stop her?"

"Nothing can stop Hope when she has her mind set on something," Liam said. "But I can slow her down."

Except that when they got back to the homestead, and Liam and Altair went their separate ways, Liam found Hope already packing to go.

"What are you doing in here?" she snapped when he opened her door and went inside.

"Nothing." He watched her throw a few things into a suitcase. "What are _you_ doing?"

"Going after Shay," Hope said. "He was here, earlier. He must have heard Achilles was sick, and come back to finish him off." She frowned and added something else to her case. "Bastard," she said, as an afterthought.

"Someone else can do that," Liam said.

"No. It has to be me." She zipped up her case and turned to look at Liam. "The board of education chose William as interim head over me. My only chance of changing their mind is to bring Shay back first. Achilles has always stopped us from chasing him to whatever foxhole he's found, and he's not here to do that anymore. I get the chance to take over, and as an added bonus I get to take the son of a bitch down."

"That son of a bitch used to be your boyfriend," Liam reminded her softly. "When we were eighteen, when he stole us those six packs to celebrate graduation-"

"Don't even go there, Liam-"

"We sat outside in the parking lot until three in the morning," Liam went on relentlessly. "And after Shay passed out, when he was snoring like a big ugly baby in the backseat, you looked at him and you said-"

"Shut up, Liam!"

"You told me he was your soulmate-"

"I was young and stupid!" Hope shouted. "How many eighteen year olds spend the rest of their lives with their first love, huh? Why am I supposed to?"

"That's not what I'm saying," Liam said. "I'm not saying that you still have to love him, I'm just reminding you that you _did_. How can you forget all of that?"

"You know what he did to me," Hope snarled. "Whatever I felt about him once, it's gone now. _Gone_ , Liam! Any man that could do that is a monster."

"I don't know what he did to you," Liam said.

Hope gave him a scathing look. "Yes you do. Everyone knows. Even the students know."

"I know his side of the story," Liam said. "And I know the official explanation. But you've never told anyone your side of the story."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You have to talk to someone," Liam said. It was the only hope he had for slowing her down. "Before you ruin his life, or- or kill him, tell me what happened."

"I can't…"

"Are we friends or not?" Liam pushed her suitcase onto the floor and sat down on the bed where it had been. Hope hesitated, visibly considering her options. Then, shaking a little, she lowered herself onto her desk chair.

"The experiment was supposed to open up all these other universes," she said. "We thought it would be so cool, exploring things like that, going to other worlds, maybe meeting ourselves."

"I remember," Liam said. "I worked on it too, remember?"

"Yea. But we messed- _I_ messed it up. I went back through it all later and it was my fault. I had done something earlier in the day and a while later things finished reacting, and- boom. A million universes all in that lab. All sucked into Shay. All… all my fault. But then later, when he was supposed to be better, we argued. And he ended up… I don't know how to explain it, technically. We don't even have the words for this yet, you know?"

He nodded. So far, he did know all this. "But what happened to _you_ , Hope?"

"He pulled one of the universes out of him," she said, ignoring his question. "I remember… his hand glowed. And then the glow pulled up, off his hand, and gathered into this ball of light. He pushed me. And I s- I saw…"

She was crying. Hope Jensen, iron woman, practically made of concentrated anger since the accident, was crying. "I know Shay saw a million universes all at once before they got stuck inside him, and he survived, but I just saw one and…"

"Tell me."

"I can't…"

"I know you can, Hope."

"I was in another universe," Hope said. "And this one, at the same time. But I was also- there were two of me in my head. The me from this universe, and the me from that one. I was two people at the same time, and it hurt so much, thinking two things at once and being two people trying to move in two different directions and it was just this… this like… stabbing feeling in my mind-"

"Shh…" Liam said, but the sound was vastly inadequate. He patted her, cautiously, on the shoulder. "It's over now."

"You're right," Hope said. She straightened and wiped at her face. "It is over, because I'm going to stop him. He still has all those worlds inside him. He can do that again, to anyone that happens to piss him off. I have to stop him, don't you understand? Because I'm the only one that can."

"How come?"

"Because he can't do it to me again," Hope said. "I've been working on a way to protect myself ever since he almost killed me, and I finally figured it out. I have a potion that will keep me safe, no matter what he tries to do. But everyone else he meets is still in danger, and they might not be lucky enough to live, like I did."

"But Hope-"

"No." She shook her head and stood up, grabbing her bag. "I _can_ stop him, so I _will_. End of discussion."

"Hope!" He followed her to the door as she walked quickly away, not even turning back once. "Hope!"

-/-

"They're coming," Desmond said when their plane touched down. "Altair's with my dad- he couldn't slow him down but he convinced him to take him with to track me down, since they know I'm with you."

"Better than nothing, I guess," Shay said. "What about Hope?"

"Caught an earlier flight," Desmond said. "She's alone."

"Well, we can send your dad off on the wrong direction, at least," Shay said. "Go home. Even if Altair tells your dad where you are, he'll be going in the wrong direction."

"And what will you do?"

Shay shook his head. "You know that already."

"Arno?"

"Of course."

Desmond nodded, and frowned. "Be careful, Shay. I know I've probably made things worse, spying on you, but I swear I only ever tried to help you."

"I believe you," Shay said. "You've been a friend to me since the day we met. So be a friend now, and go."

"Good luck," Desmond said, before walking away.

Shay hurried to the Dorian's. He didn't think about being sneaky or making himself harder to find. All he could think of was getting to his baby before it was too late. He didn't really believe he was making it out of here, not unless he were being carried away in chains (or a body bag). But before that happened, he needed to see Arno. To say goodbye and promise that things would be okay, even if they wouldn't be. To hold him one more time.

When he got to the house, he opened the door without bothering to knock. Charles and Arno were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table, eating in silence. When Arno saw Shay, his face lit up and he jumped off his chair, running over to the door.

"Shay!" he shouted. "Shay, Shay! Why are you here?"

But Shay didn't answer. He just knelt down, and wrapped Arno up in his arms. He half expected the boy to protest, (he was getting to the age where he didn't like hugs as much as he used to), but he didn't. Arno fit so perfectly into Shay's arms, folding himself into the space between Shay's arms and his chest, fitting as perfectly as if he had been made to go there.

"I love you, Arno," Shay said. "You know that, right?"

"Yea." Arno said. "Yea, of course I do. You don't have to say it, silly."

"Do you love me?"

"More than anyone else," Arno whispered. Shay heard Charles's chair scrape against the floor, and he was half aware of the startled look on the man's face. He didn't care, though. If Charles didn't want to be replaced, maybe he shouldn't have treated Arno the way he had. Shouldn't have gone away all the time, shouldn't have blamed a seven year old for his mother's death. Besides, they had all the time in the world for a father son relationship, now that Shay was going to be taken away.

As if on cue, Hope walked right in through the front door. Shay had left it open, and she just walked in, her face a mask of rage. "Time to go home, Shay," she said, and hearing her voice was like hearing the voice of a stranger. Hard to believe they had once lain side by side in bed, whispering their plans for the future late into the night and laughing at the stars they were reaching for. "This is the end of the line for you."

Shay saw the gun at the same moment Arno did. The boy twisted around in Shay's arms, straining to get away from Shay's hold even as Shay held him tighter. "Don't hurt him!" he shouted. "Go away, go away!"

"Arno, no-" Shay tried to pull him back, but Arno slid away from him, running at Hope.

"Don't hurt Shay!" he shouted, and-

And Shay was sure, later, that she would never really have shot him. She could have been raising her gun to get it out of his reach, or to warn him away. She couldn't have shot him. No matter how broken Hope was, she was not a child killer.

But in that moment, all Shay saw was the gun coming up, and Arno getting closer, and _God_ he was so scared. That was his baby, and he cared about Arno more than he cared about himself, or Hope, or anyone else in the world. There were a million universes (almost) inside him, and they reacted to his fear (terror, horror, shock, _panic_ ) in exactly the worst way. Shay tried to reign them back but suddenly there were a dozen universes, two dozen, bursting out of him into the room.

"Arno!" he screamed, and he lunged at the boy, meeting him halfway as his baby turned back to him. Shay folded himself over the sobbing boy, shielding him from the universes that pulsed and danced like impossible hallucinations around them. Shay watched them, but it was hard to keep track of anything that was going on when it was all going on at once. He saw a host of worlds rushing past him, so fast they made his head hurt. It was a pale imitation of how much the original accident had hurt, but this was so, so bad. (Someone was screaming, but Shay couldn't tell who it was or what was wrong) "Close your eyes, baby," he whispered. "Don't look."

Arno whimpered, a sound that terrified Shay in a way even the gun hadn't, and squeezed his eyes shut, reaching up to cover his ears with his hands even as he pushed as far as he could into Shay's chest. It was so hard to watch, the universes, Arno, everything- Shay grit his teeth and strained to pull the newly released universes back into him. And more than that, he bent his entire will to _protecting_ Arno. To shielding him from whatever damage the universes could do to him.

 _Arno could not be hurt by this._

"Don't look," he whispered, because his mind was so full of keeping Arno safe that he couldn't think of anything else to say. "Don't look, don't look, don't look."

And then it was over. Shay took a deep breath as the last of the universes settled back inside him, and looked Arno over. His head was spinning, and he could feel blood trickling out of his nose from the mental effort of what he'd just done. "You okay?"

Arno nodded, wiping at his whole face with his hands. They were so small. How had Shay never noticed how _small_ Arno was before, how small and defenseless and unprotected? "I'm okay," he said, in a tiny little voice that made him sound so much younger than he really was.

"Damn, Shay," Hope said. "Liam tried to tell me you changed, but you would have killed me, wouldn't you?"

"I wasn't trying to," Shay said. He could barely get the words out, and he leaned back against the wall, suddenly too tired to support his own weight. "I was just scared- the gun-" He blinked fuzzily at Hope. "You're not dead?"

She held up an empty potion vial. It was hard to tell through his rapidly blurring vision, but she looked smug. "I can protect myself. I invented a potion, Shay, specifically to protect myself from what _you_ can do to me. You'll never hurt me again."

She walked slowly toward him, then crouched down only a foot or two away. Arno flinched closer to Shay, trembling. "But see, I can protect myself. And you've already been hurt as badly as you can be by all this. And apparently, you can protect him."

"Hope…" he whispered.

"But no one protected him." She jabbed an accusatory finger toward the kitchen table, where Charles was- had been- standing. "And because of what you just pulled, he's dead.

Charles Dorian was on the floor, unnaturally still and pale, utterly still. Not breathing. Dead. He'd just been hit by two dozen universes, swallowed up by the universes Shay had just lost control of. It wasn't hard to imagine exactly what had happened- the way seeing all those worlds at once had overwhelmed him, triggered a stroke or a brain hemorrhage or some other medical thing Shay didn't understand. The point was- Shay had lost control of the universes inside him, and as a direct result, Arno's father was dead.

"See?" There were tears all over Arno's face as he looked up at Shay, and he wasn't even trying to hide them. "Daddy's dead. I saw it over and over again and it finally _happened_ , Shay. He's dead!"

"And… and I killed him," Shay whispered. That was the last he knew before merciful unconsciousness rushed up to claim him.

 **-/-**

 **:)**


	16. Chapter 16

**[?]**

Shay stood in the baby's room, breathing softly, as if he was afraid the slightest noise would wake him up. It was after dark, and the room was lit only by the hall light outside the door.

"You can touch him, you know."

He hadn't heard her come in, but suddenly there she was, at his side and leaning against him. She was nearly as tall as he was, but she was exhausted from the hours of labor that had preceded giving birth. When she sagged against him, her head barely came to the top of his shoulder.

"I don't want to hurt him," Shay whispered.

"You won't." She smiled, and he smiled back. Of course he smiled. He hadn't done anything else for hours now. "Don't you want to hold your son?"

"Well- of course. But-"

The baby fussed, and Hope nudged Shay's side. "He's probably hungry," she said. "Bring him over."

Shay left his wife in the doorway, and took a few shaky steps into the room. He stopped at the crib, and bent over. One hand on the bar of the crib, the other rubbing his son's hair. "Are babies supposed to have this much hair?" he breathed.

"Ours does," Hope said. She stepped up close behind Shay, as if she couldn't stand to be far from either him or their son. She reached a hand up to run the fingers through the shaggy mane he had never really learned to tame. "He probably just wants to look like his daddy."

"Well." His fingers stopped their careful movement as the baby huffed out an annoyed little huff, the breath brushing against the side of Shay's hand. "He could probably use a better role model than me. In life choices and in hair styles."

"I love your hair," Hope said, leaning over to kiss Shay on the chin. "Don't you dare change it."

"Promise," he said absently. He was still staring at the baby in the crib, still not quite able to believe he existed at all. "Can you believe this, Hope?" he asked. "We made a little baby. You and me- we made a baby."

"You should name him," Hope said.

"Don't you want to-"

"I have a feeling you already have one in mind," Hope said, and Shay nodded. It was funny- he couldn't remember giving it much thought before, but he knew exactly what this baby's name was, knew it like an absolute certainty that had been planted in his mind.

"I do," he said. Very carefully, he leaned forward and scooped the impossibly tiny human being out of the crib and into his arms. The baby yawned and reached for him, curling into the warmth of Shay's chest. One arm snaked free of his blankets, and possibly by accident found its way into his mouth. He sucked at his thumb, making little gurgling noises of enjoyment. The baby's eyelids blinked slowly open, and he peered up at Shay's face, studying it through bright blue eyes with an intensity that took Shay's breath away. Then the baby took his thumb out of his mouth, and smiled, right at Shay. It was the most perfect, innocent little smile Shay had ever seen.

"Oh, Arno," he whispered. "You're beautiful. You're perfect. I love you so much, baby."

-/-

Hope called Liam, once the ambulance had arrived for Shay and the other guy. "I got him," she said, and for the first time since Shay had almost killed her, years ago now, she was smiling. "Shay. I got him."

"Oh." Liam didn't sound happy about that, big surprise. He'd always stuck up for Shay, even after it became obvious what kind of a monster their old friend had become. "How is he?"

Hope glanced looked down at Shay, still passed out or asleep or something on the stretcher in front of her. "Out cold," she told Liam. There was a smile on Shay's face that was completely at odds with the situation he was in. Smile might not have been the right word- it didn't cover the absolute joy on his face in that moment. It made Hope frown. "I think… he's dreaming."

"Nightmares?" Liam asked.

-/-

 **[Dream?]**

He sat on the chair that had been left next to Arno's crib, and just held his son. Soaking up the sight of every perfect inch of him. This was how things should have been, not…

His mind tried to pull up some other scenario, something dark and sad and lonely, of another life, another Hope, another Arno. Another _Shay._ A sadder Shay. _("Daddy's dead, Shay!" "And… and I killed him.")_

He flinched away from it, blocking the memories away. No. No, no, no. He didn't want to deal with it. No. No. No. No-

Arno made a noise like a squeak, startling a laugh out of Shay. Gradually, he calmed again, letting the indistinct worries fade from the back of his mind. This was all he wanted. It felt like it was all he had _ever_ wanted. To be here, in the home he shared with his beautiful wife, holding their baby, the baby that Shay felt like he had been put on this Earth to love.

Holding Arno, and never letting him go.

-/-

"No," Hope said softly. "Good dreams, I think."

-/-

Altair was there when Liam hung up the phone. "Hope got to Shay," he said. "We didn't do enough."

He nodded. "What about Desmond?"

"Your brother's fine," Liam said. He sounded absolutely defeated. "I mean- I think so. Hope didn't mention him, but that could mean anything."

 _"Des?"_ Altair asked, almost afraid of the answer he was going to get. _"Are you… you okay?"_

 _"I'm fine,"_ Desmond said. _"Shay sent me back to my apartment- I don't know what happened to him."_

 _"He's-"_ Altair hesitated. But who would be better to tell Desmond the truth? _"Hope got him."_

 _"Oh, God."_ Desmond didn't speak for a long minute. Then- _"What's she going to do with him?"_

 _"I don't know,"_ Altair said. _"What are_ you _going to do?"_

 _"I'm going to get… um- what do I do now? How- I'm going to get Kadar back from Gist. Then we'll have to go check on Arno, I guess. Make sure he's okay."_

 _"He won't be,"_ Altair said. _"Doesn't he like Shay?"_

 _"I know!"_ Desmond snapped. _"But someone has to go see him."_

 _"Good luck,"_ Altair said. _"Do you need me to come out?"_

He fully expected Desmond to say no. In the years just after Desmond had left the homestead, Altair had offered to follow him out east half a hundred times. Desmond's reply had always been the same- I love you, but I need to know I can do this myself.

Not this time. This time, Desmond hesitated a long time, and said, _"Yea. Please come. As soon as you can."_

 _"I'm leaving now."_

He got up, and then winced at the startled look at Liam's face. "Sorry," he said. "I have to go."

"Where?"

"My brother," Altair explained. "I have to be there for him."

"I should go too," Liam said. "I need to stop Hope from doing anything drastic."

"Too late," Altair muttered. "And anyway, she'll probably take him back here. If you want to help him-" And Altair still wasn't entirely sure Shay deserved the help- "You need to stay here."

Liam nodded and let Altair leave without another word. Literally just moments later, he ran into Malik in the hallway outside, trying to look like he hadn't been eavesdropping. Altair gave him a look, and Malik quickly gave up the pretense. "I'm coming with you," he said, and he didn't say it like a question, he said it as fact.

"Why?" Altair asked.

"Because the man that's supposed to be taking care of my brother was out here earlier, helping a man that everyone knows is really dangerous. I need to see Kadar."

"Malik-"

"I need to see him!"

And Altair needed to see Desmond. Now, if not sooner. "Alright," he said. "But we're leaving now."

Malik nodded and very nearly ran down the hall. Altair cursed and hurried after him.

They got a taxi to take them to the airport, where Malik almost ran into traffic because he was so intent on getting inside faster. After that, he insisted on holding Malik's hand, to both of their disgust.

"I'm not a kid!" Malik protested.

"You're eight years old," Altair said. "That's the definition of being a kid."

"I hate you!"

Altair sighed. "Do you want to get to your brother or not?"

Malik twisted his face up and went quiet. His fingers felt all wrong in Altair's hand, sweaty and clammy at the same time. Altair bought tickets (paying an absurd amount for the next possible flight) and turned to pull Malik away.

"Your son is adorable," the woman that had sold the tickets called after him.

Malik froze like he'd been punched, and Altair's brain connected the dots, figuring out what would happen next- Malik would point out that Altair was _not_ his father, Altair wouldn't be able to deny it, he'd likely be detained for kidnapping, and at the very least they would miss their flight. "He doesn't like to be called adorable," he said, forcing a smile.

"Aw." She nodded, sharing a knowing smile with Altair. "Well, whether he wants to hear it or not, he still is."

Altair nodded and pulled Malik away before this could get any more out of control.

"I hate you," Malik whispered.

"I know."

-/-

"Achilles is dead."

William was the last person Hope had expected to see in Shay's hospital room. She should have thought of it, the man wasn't the kind to give up easily. "Out," she snapped. "I got to him first, I'm bringing him back. That's all there is to it."

"I know." The man looked older than Hope had ever seen him before. "I didn't come to take your boyfriend away from you."

"He's not my boyfriend." Anymore. And that was when his first words caught up to her. "Dead?"

"About half an hour ago," William said. "He passed on in the hospital."

"Oh." Achilles had been her mentor. He had taken in an interest in her when she was young, and always pushed her to be better than she thought she could be. Losing Achilles would be hard on everyone, but it was _personal_ for her.

And all she could say was oh?

"The board contacted me a little while ago," William said. "I'm taking over. Permanently, now that Achilles is dead."

She'd never gotten the chance to impress them with her capture of Shay. She'd chosen to call Liam in the ambulance instead of anyone _important_ , and then she'd been caught up with starting her analysis. Of course they had chosen William over her. "Congratulations," she forced out.

"Thank you." He stepped closer to study the machines surrounding Shay. "What are you doing?"

"The doctors don't know why he hasn't woken up," Hope said. "But they said he's exhibiting unusual brain wave patterns. I thought it might have something to do with the universes stuck inside him, so I'm trying to find ways to detect magic, figure out what his is doing."

"Ah." They both stared at Shay for a moment. Hope couldn't stand the sight of Shay's body for long, though, and imagined he must be thinking much the same thing. "Any luck yet? Learned anything?"

"Not yet," Hope said. "The equipment here is terrible, and the doctors keep hinting that they want me out of the way."

"Listen, Hope," William said after a while. "I know we got off on the wrong foot, but you're good at what you do."

"I hope so," Hope said, with as much acid as she could manage. "I've been training to do your job since I was a teenager."

"The _point,_ " William said. "Is that I would like you to stay on at the school."

"Of course." She had nowhere else to go.

"So I thought a goodwill gesture would be appropriate," William went on. "You have free reign to do whatever you want with that thing, there." He pointed to Shay. "Study it, pull it apart, whatever you need. I know his accident ruined the project that was going to make your name, but if you're lucky the worlds inside it will give you the information you need."

"Deal," Hope said at once. It wasn't as much as what she wanted, but this was better than nothing. "Why do you call him an it?"

"Because." He looked at her. Smiled, just a hair. "It's easier to run experiments on an it than a him."

She nodded, but said nothing.

"Oh," William added, just when Hope thought he was about to leave. "By the way, that guy he killed."

"What about him?"

"Charles Dorian," William said. "He's a high mage."

"Figures," Hope muttered. "A high profile murder, like that-"

"Technically, Dorian's not dead," William said.

"Wait-" she frowned at him. "But I saw him. He wasn't breathing. That kid, the psychic, he said he saw his father die already."

"Or," William pointed out. "He saw something that scared him, and then his father down for the count, and then heard you say his father was dead? Children are idiots, Hope, don't you think he could misinterpret what he saw?"

"I-" She gave him a look. "How is he alive?"

"Very close to death," William said. "But they brought him back in the ambulance."

"Well that's good," Hope said. "At least he didn't ruin someone else's life."

William snorted. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not being specific enough. They brought his body back. Not his mind. He's in a room two floors down, staring into space. He's breathing on his own, he's physically fine, but… light off, nobody's home."

Hope looked down at Shay. "You son of a bitch," she said. "You might as well have killed him."

-/-

Desmond was the one that came to pick Arno up from the police station. Not Shay. People kept telling him Shay wasn't coming back. They kept saying Arno was so lucky to be away from Shay, that he was safe now. They didn't understand that he was only safe when Shay was there, because Shay had protected him, always, because Shay loved him. More than his daddy had…

But no. That wasn't fair. He couldn't think mean things about his daddy when his daddy was dead. He'd never been mean. On purpose. Well, not usually, anyway.

"Arno?" Desmond crouched down in front of him, trying to smile but not quite managing it.

"Hi Desmond," Arno whispered. "Is Shay coming?"

He knew Shay wasn't coming, but he wanted to hear it from someone he trusted.

Desmond shook his head. "No," he said. "I'm sorry, Arno. Shay's in the hospital, with um… his old girlfriend. She doesn't like him very much, and she's going to take him away soon."

"I don't want him to go away," Arno whispered. He could still feel Shay's arms around him, protecting him, warm and safe and solid. He could hear Shay's voice whispering in his ear, _don't look don't look don't look…_ "My daddy's dead, who's going to take care of me?"

"Well-" Desmond didn't look happy about what he was about to say. "Elise's father is waiting in the lobby."

Arno had only met him once or twice. "Why?" he asked.

"Because he worked with your dad," Desmond said. "And they did very important work, so the government is doing Elise's dad a favor by letting him take you home."

"Don't I get a say?" Arno asked. "I'd rather stay with you, or Gist!"

"It won't be too bad," Desmond said. "You like Elise, don't you?"

"Sure," Arno muttered. "Not her daddy. I don't know him."

"You'll still be in town," Desmond said. "I already talked to him, he wants this to be as easy as possible for you. So you'll still be taking lessons with Elise and Kadar. You'll still see me and Gist sometimes."

"It won't be the same," Arno said. He wiped tears off his face. "I didn't think this would be so hard. I knew it was coming. I got used to the idea of him dying. But I didn't think I was gonna lose Shay, too." And the loss of both of them at once was like an empty, gnawing feeling in his gut. Like not eating for a whole day and feeling his stomach try to turn itself inside out, except this was worse because it wasn't his stomach, it was his _heart_.

Shay would have hugged him. Desmond took his hand and gently led him out to the lobby. Elise was there, with her dad, and Kadar sitting next to her. Both of them jumped up when Desmond led Arno in, and ran to him, racing each other to get there first. Elise won, hugging Arno super tight, so tight that it hurt. Arno hugged her back, though, and in the next second Kadar crashed into the pair of them and wrapped his arms around both of their backs. Their voices were a chorus of questions, are you oks and what happened and other questions he couldn't hear over his sudden crying.

"Arno?"

And Arno looked up, over his two best friends, and saw Elise's daddy watching him. He frowned.

"Are you ready to go?"

"I wanna go home," Arno said. "I wanna see Shay!"

"You can't." He didn't sound mean, he just sounded sad. "I'm sorry, Arno, but you can't ever see him again."

-/-

Desmond took Kadar to the airport to pick up their brothers. Malik didn't look anything like his brother, and Desmond wouldn't have recognized him if he weren't next to Altair (holding his hand, for some reason?). Kadar was short, still holding onto his baby fat, with a face made for smiling. Malik, on the other hand, was tall and slim like a beanpole. And even though Desmond knew he and Kadar were twins, and so Malik couldn't be older than seven, there were already frown lines starting on his face.

But he hugged his brother when they met, and Kadar hugged back with real enthusiasm. Desmond turned to Altair. "Thanks for coming," he said. "I don't know what to do."

"Tell me how to help," Altair said. "Anything you need, I'm here for you."

"I don't know what I need yet," Desmond said. "Just stay here. Help me figure it out."

"Excuse me?"

Desmond looked down at Malik, who was frowning at him. "You're the one watching my brother."

"Yea," Desmond said.

"Well you're not doing a very good job."

Kadar groaned. "Malik…"

Malik completely ignored his brother, looking up at Desmond with his hands on his hips. It would have been funny, if there was anything funny at all about today. "You teach him bad words," he said. "You let him hang out with crazy people, you bring him to a _bar_ -"

"Hey," Kadar interrupted. He reached over and pulled at his brother's sleeve until Malik had to stop and turn back.

"What?"

"Not right now," Kadar said. "Desmond's a good guy. You don't have to yell at him today."

Malik flushed and nodded, giving into his brother. Kadar nudged him again, and Malik sighed. "I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"It's okay." Desmond looked between Altair and Malik, noticing how tired and ragged they looked. "You two can crash at my place for as long as you need to. It's cramped, but you're definitely welcome there."

"Thanks," Altair said.

"Do you have any bags, or-"

"Didn't exactly think that far ahead," Altair admitted.

"Then let's just go," Desmond said. "I've had enough of airports for a while."

It was dark when they left the airport, and very late when they finally got back to Desmond's apartment. Malik was dragging his feet and fighting very hard to keep himself from looking tired, so Kadar showed him the couch where he normally slept, and Malik was asleep within seconds. Kadar managed to stay awake just long enough to eat some reheated spaghetti, but then he crawled in between Malik and the back of the couch, wedging himself as close as possible to his brother. Malik didn't wake up, but he moved his arm to wrap it around Kadar. Within minutes, Kadar was asleep too.

"They're not bad kids," Desmond said softly. By this point, he and Altair were sitting across from each other at the tiny kitchen table, nursing tea and talking in quiet voices to keep from waking Malik and Kadar.

"Maybe yours isn't," Altair snorted. "Mine could use some work."

"Well." Desmond smiled a little. "Couldn't we all?"

Altair nodded, and they fell silent. Desmond ran his fingers over the slight bump in his tea mug where the pattern was, and watched the rise and watched Altair. He had forgotten how good it felt to be with him, to be connected in their minds and physically close as well. To know what his brother was thinking and how he was feeling, to look at the mask he used to hide his emotions and know what those emotions were anyway.

They were thirty one years old, and the last time they had seen each other was when Desmond ran away at sixteen. "We have to stay together," Desmond said. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Altair admitted. His voice was flat but Desmond could feel the overwhelming affection in his mind. Then he sighed. "So tell me about Shay."

"I thought we weren't going to talk about him anymore," Desmond said.

"That was… before." Altair paused, taking a long gulp of the tea that Desmond knew for a _fact_ that he hated, just to give himself time to think.

Desmond didn't want to give him time to think, to dig his heels in. "Before what?"

"Before I came here. I'm sitting in your home, in your city, and something extremely bad just happened to your friends. The least I can do is listen."

"Shay was-" Only he wasn't dead yet, was he? Just… gone. Taken away by Hope, and that was almost the same thing. She'd never let him see the light of day again. "Shay is… was… Shay-" He stopped, considering, then started again. "I don't know. He was something different, I guess. He should have been the tough guy, the moody, dark, 'I've been betrayed by everyone that ever loved me and I'm out for revenge' guy. But I never saw him come alive, unless he was with Arno. He adored that kid, you know? Would have done anything for Arno."

"Where's the kid now?"

"With the father of one of his friends. His mother's dead. And I guess there was no love lost there anyway."

"Will he be happy there?"

Desmond shook his head. "No," he said. "Not without Shay."

"Are you going to miss him too?"

"Yes," Desmond said. "The world is worse today than it was a week ago because he's gone."

"Then… I'm sorry," Altair said. "For everything I ever said about him. For everything I thought I knew. He can't be as bad as I thought he was, if everything you're saying is true."

"He was a good man," Desmond said.

And Altair smiled at him. A little. "He is," he corrected. "Because he's not dead yet, and I am going to do everything I can to get him back."

"We can't-"

"We can."

"But-"

"Desmond." Altair stood and walked past Desmond, flicking him on the ear as he passed, which annoyed Desmond just as much now as it had when they were twelve. (Or it would have, if it wasn't so familiar). "We will."

-/-

"So you're not dreaming."

Hope had gotten used to talking to herself while she worked. The last time she'd been on a project with someone else had been the project that broke Shay and got them all into this mess in the first place. But now Shay was back, sort of, and Hope kept slipping up and addressing him like he could actually hear.

He couldn't, of course. He was utterly still on the hospital bed, apart from the slow, steady, rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. He might have been asleep, if Hope hadn't already known better.

"I've conducted every test I can think of," Hope said. "I asked the hospital staff for advice. Everything we have says that you're not dreaming. Brainwaves are all wrong. But you look like you're dreaming." She leaned over and pulled one of Shay's eyes open. It moved a little, as if tracking some movement only he could see. "What are you seeing, Shay? Are you-"

Hope stepped back, laughing a little. "Of course," she said. "You're not dreaming, you're seeing some other universe." And in a way, it made total sense. Pretty much the last thing he'd done before passing out was open a portal into a couple dozen universes. His mind was still trapped inside those worlds.

But Shay was still smiling. It was a warm, gentle smile, of someone utterly at peace. It was more than Shay deserved. He shouldn't be happy. He should be miserable, in pain, something. Not happy.

"But I can use this," Hope said, after a moment. "As long as you don't wake up… When your mind is… wherever it is, and your body is here, there's so much I can learn from what's going on with you. Alternate universes- that's what we were after this whole time. You ruined that, and now I'm finally getting something out of that whole stupid mistake."

She leaned forward and squeezed her hand around his arm, tight, tight enough to leave bruises. "God, Shay," she said. "Why did it have to be you, huh? It could have been anyone in the whole world, and that would have been better. But it had to be _you_. And then you-" She shook her head, squeezing still tighter.

There was nothing else to say, after that. Hope arranged for Shay's transport back to Davenport (and how different the situation was now from the way it was when he left). She consulted with some of the doctors in the hospital, figured out which drugs to hook Shay up to, to make absolutely sure he wouldn't wake up. Then she called William.

"I'm bringing Shay back," she said. "To study. I have a few ideas on which direction to take, actually, and I think we can learn a lot from his body and his brain." She took a deep breath. "I need your approval for some expensive materials," she said. "This opportunity only lasts as long as he stays unconscious, as long as he's still seeing other worlds, so I want to put him into suspended animation. Make sure there's no possible way that he'll ever wake up."

"Done," William said at once. "I think we're going to do very good work together, Hope."

"I think you might be right," she said. "I'll be there by toni-" She cursed and cut herself off. "Hang on, Miles, I'll call you back. The hospital send some guys to transport Sh- the thing that used to be Shay, and I swear it looks like they're going to drop it."

She hung up and turned to take care of this fresh new problem. When the men had taken Shay- when they had taken the body away, Hope went down to the hospital cafeteria. She still had a few hours before her flight, and she hadn't eaten in ages. But the break gave her time to think, about things she didn't necessarily want to think _about_.

About… what universe was Shay seeing, that made him smile like that? Like the world and everything in it was absolutely perfect.

-/-

 **[Alternate Universe #1]**

Shay was starting to feel like something was wrong in all this. There was a nagging feeling of… of being out of place in his own skin. Of turning left when he should have turned right. It was getting harder and harder to ignore the feeling, but Shay worked at it. Because the only thing in the world he wanted to think about was Arno, and the absolutely perfect feeling of his baby in his arms.

 **-/-**

 **I'm going to stop pretending to know what my update schedule is going to be ahead of time. I thought I was going to slow down now I'm back at school, and instead I have two longish chapters in two days. I don't even know anymore.**


	17. Chapter 17

**[Alternate universe #7]**

He was eight years old, and he was hungry. As hungry as he had been when he was seven, and six, and five, and… and as far back as he could remember. The only thing Shay wanted, in the whole world, was the feeling of a full stomach.

He didn't mind the rest so much. The cold got to him sometimes, when it was the middle of winter and he couldn't find anywhere to stay. And it was dangerous, out on the streets. But none of that bothered him like the hunger did, biting and clawing at his stomach like a beast fighting its way out. He had already learned that it was never going away, and when he laid down to sleep it was without complaint. There was no point in complaining.

"Shay! Shay, get over here! Shay, Shay, Shay!"

"Gist…"

His best friend was as bony as Shay, light and skinny as a pencil. It still kind of hurt when he landed on top of Shay.

"They're giving out food! Come on, Shay, there's plenty of it!"

"What?"

"Come on come on come on!"

So Shay got up and ran, letting Gist lead the way because he knew where he was going. Then they walked for a while, when their legs hurt from running, and then they ran a little bit more. "See?" Gist said at last, stopping at an open square between the houses. "Look, look!"

"You don't need to say everything twice," Shay grumbled. "I can hear you fine if you just say it once."

"I'm excited!"

"I can tell."

But Shay was excited too. There was a whole group of people at the other end of the square, handing out bags of food. They'd come in a truck, a _big_ one. There was plenty for everyone.

He lost Gist in the crowd of people waiting for their meal, and soon Shay found himself on the edge of the crowd, too small to push his way to the front. He bit his lip in frustration, and pushed a fist into his face, to rub away his frustrated tears.

Then there was a tap on his back, and Shay jumped. He spun around, and there was a man, right there, crouching over him with a fond smile and the brightest blue eyes Shay had ever seen. "Hey there," he said softly, and Shay only flushed. "Are you hungry?"

But his voice had gone off and run away, and Shay didn't know what he would have said even if he could have spoken. He just nodded.

The stranger (with the warm eyes, and the familiar smile) had a paper bag in one hand, which he passed off to Shay without further comment. Shay tore it open, gasping in delight when he saw that it really was packed with food. It was the most food he'd ever had at one time. Enough that he wouldn't have to be hungry for a little while. When he looked back up again, the stranger was smiling at him. Kindly, not mocking. "Th-thank you," Shay said, clutching the bag close to his chest in case the stranger wanted to take it away.

"You're welcome," the stranger said. "What's your name?"

"Shay," he said. "Shay Cormac."

"Hi, Shay." The stranger held out his hand and Shay (after a little bit of maneuvering, to make sure one hand still had a really firm grip on the bag of food), shook it. The stranger's man was warm, and big, folding all around Shay's. "I'm Arno." He took his hand back, stood up, and winked. "I'll be looking out for you, if I come back this way again."

No grown up had ever looked out for him before. That night, when Shay went to sleep, the warm feeling in his gut was only partly because of the food.

-/-

"Welcome home," Hope muttered to Shay as they reached the homestead at last. "It's been a white, hasn't it?"

"Too long," William said, coming up a side path toward her. "I see you got here in one piece."

"I did," Hope agreed. And what was that supposed to mean, exactly? Did he think she was so helpless she couldn't even Shy from one coast to the other? "Do you want to see it?"

He nodded, and they started walking toward the research tower. Hope had arranged to have Shay shipped out earlier, and a couple of lab assistants were already supposed to be arranging him to start work. They walked in mostly agreeable silence until they reached the right level of the tower, and Hope nodded approvingly at what had been done already.

"This looks good," William said. He sounded honestly surprised, which was a little annoying. Why, exactly, was it a surprise that she knew how to do her job? "Do you need any additional equipment?"

"No," Hope said. "Not at this stage, anyway. Once we're more settled, I'll see which route is the best to pursue."

"Keep me updated," William said. He moved closer to examine Shay, and Hope shadowed him. She wanted the chance to make sure everything had been set up correctly.

"We just finished," one of the assistants said. "It took a while, but the whole experiment was set up according to your instructions."

Hope nodded. Shay had been positioned flat on his back on a large examination table. His arms and legs were both spread to allow for better access, and each limb had then been strapped to the table. Hope ran her fingers over Shay's nearest arm, stopping when she came to the fresh incision just below the elbow. Several tubes and wires had been inserted and connected to muscles and nerves, and then the whole thing closed up. There were identical cuts on his other arm and both legs, and a much larger one extending from his chest down to his navel. More machines were attached to him through electrodes and other wires, and a half dozen cameras were trained on him, to catch any tiny movements he might make.

"We're just getting the mental readout," another assistant piped up.

"Brain patterns?" William asked. He moved over to the assistant's workstation, and peered over her shoulder to see more closely. He studied it for a second, then turned back to Hope. "Alright," he said. "That is extremely impressive."

"It wasn't made from scratch or anything," Hope said. "Hospitals have been using these machines on coma victims for years, as a way to check for brain activity. And no, actually, this isn't just looking for brain patterns. It's analyzes the way his brain reacts to stimuli, and reconstructs what he thinks he's seeing in response.

"We can see the worlds he's looking at?" William asked. When Hope nodded, he raised his eyebrows in an expression of genuine surprise. "That's incredible."

"The tech company that makes the machines actually convinced some big magical research tower to add some enchantments to it," Hope explained. Normally, tech and magic didn't mix (the kind of people that worked with magic tended to not get along well with people that worked with computers).

"Still impressive."

"I know," Hope said. She braced herself- because she was not a fan of Shay's universes- and switched her attention to the screen as it came online. William was at her shoulder, a little too close for comfort, and they both watched with interest as the picture resolved itself into something that made sense.

The scene was somewhere dark and grimy, a city street somewhere. There was no sound, and it was hard to figure out what was going on, exactly, without context. But Hope couldn't help watching, fascinated.

"Get back to me when you know more," William told her.

"I will," Hope said vaguely, already thinking about her next steps.

-/-

Malik waited until Kadar was out of the apartment, at lessons with Elise (but not Arno, who apparently hadn't left his room since coming home), before approaching Altair and Desmond.

It took them a minute to notice him, but Malik waited patiently. Eventually, Desmond noticed him standing there, and smiled a little. Malik smiled politely back, but didn't really say anything. He wasn't sure he liked Desmond, all that much. The man was an okay fit for Kadar, who needed things like smiles without good reason, but it just made Malik feel uncomfortable.

"What do you want?" Altair asked, in an aggravated tone that Malik was much more comfortable with.

"When are we going back to school?" Malik asked, and Altair shook his head.

"I'll get you on a flight," he said. "But I'm not going back."

Malik stared, trying to figure out why the thought of that upset him so much. Then he shook his head. "Of course you are."

Altair raised his eyebrows. "No, actually, I want to stay with my brother."

"And I want to stay with mine," Malik said. "But you're going back. And so am I." He still needed to learn, whatever the circumstances.

"What you do is up to you," Altair said. "But I'm not going back."

"What about Shay?" Malik asked.

"What about him?" Altair asked.

"He's there, right?" Malik asked. "Because Hope has him, and she'll go back."

"Why should I care about Shay?" Altair asked, and Malik smiled like he'd already won while Desmond gave him a hurt look.

"Because nothing bad he did was his fault," Malik said. "Are you really going to let Hope do whatever she wants to him, for something he can't even control?"

"Liam can-"

"Come on," Malik protested. "He's never going to stand up to her, he never has."

"Why are you such a-" Altair made a frustrated noise and stood up. "How do you even know about all this?"

Malik shrugged. "I pay attention." It wasn't like he had any friends of his own to waste his energy thinking about.

"He's right, Altair," Desmond said softly. "Please?"

"This isn't right," Altair protested. "We were supposed to stay together this time." He stood up angrily and went to the window, turning his back to both of them. Desmond shot Malik an apologetic look, and followed Altair to the window. Nothing at all seemed to happen, apart from the occasional shift of expression. Even under the circumstances, Malik couldn't help watching with curiosity. He had seen Altair mentally talking with his brother before, but he'd never seen it in the same room before. Eventually Altair scowled and said, "Fine."

"We won't stop talking this time," Desmond promised. "We'll visit. We know better know, things will be different this time. You'll see."

"Yes," Altair said. But his shoulders slumped, and he had the look of a man doing something necessary that was completely against his own desire. "I guess we _will_ see."

-/-

Hope stayed up through the night, watching Shay. Watching his universes, anyway. What he was seeing. There were a lot. Sometimes Shay lingered in one place (universe) for hours, and sometimes he would stay in a place for only seconds. Sometimes he went back to the same one over and over again. There didn't seem to be any kind of a pattern to how long he stayed in any one place, but there were other similarities between the different worlds.

People, mostly. The same people seemed to follow him from world to world, some of them familiar to Hope and some of them strangers. Maybe people were attracted to each other in some way, so that they were likely to meet each other again and again in different worlds. It would need further research, but later.

Right now, Hope was more interested in the one guy that was there in every single universe. Literally, every one. Hope watched for a while, and did some math. By morning, Shay had been through ten universes, which Hope had started to number and describe in as much detail as she could manage.

She saw herself in seven of those ten universes. Liam was in five. Achilles was in two. There were also several other people that Hope didn't know at all, that she assumed were people he'd met since moving away from the homestead. She made note of them, but there was only one that actually interested her.

The kid was in every single universe. Dorian's son, the little boy that Shay had protected when he let two dozen universes explode into a suburban household and killed a man. (That bothered her. A lot. That she had let Shay run away and it had ended in a man's death. How responsible for that was she supposed to be?)

What was the kid's deal? Why was he so connected to Shay? She watched them connect, over and over and over again, in every way imaginable. Parents, friends, coworkers, teachers- she watched without understanding. For now.

She was going to understand. Eventually. Everything about Shay, everything about the way alternate worlds worked. It would just take work, and effort, and a lot of time- Hope laughed to herself, because there was no one around but Shay to hear her. And he wasn't exactly listening at the moment. But it was just _funny_ , because she'd put just as much effort into him when Shay was her boyfriend instead of her research topic.

At least she didn't have to dress up anymore. Sweatpants and T-shirts all the way…

"What are you laughing about?"

"Liam." She tried her best to compose her face before turning to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I heard you were back." He spoke slowly, and looked at Shay while he said it. "What did you do to him?"

"What we should have done when he first _broke about a million worlds_ ," Hope said. "Don't argue with this. It's the right thing to do."

"You really believe that, don't you?" He looked again at Shay, who was covered in tubes and wires, tied down and trapped and not able to hurt anyone else. Except, by the look on Liam's face, he wasn't seeing it the same way as Hope.

"I do," she told him.

"You're a real bitch sometimes, Hope," Liam said, and walked away.

-/-

Arno waited a week before going back to class. He might not have gone back at all, except Elise got tired of watching him pout.

"Stop acting sad," she told him.

"I'm not acting" he told her.

"I'm just really, really sad!" He doesn't give her a chance to interrupt, because he knows how much Elise loves to interrupt. "I wanna go home. I wanna see Shay. I don't want daddy to be dead."

"But you can't change anything."

"I know!" Arno whined. "But I want to! I-" He stopped talking so he could focus better on trying to figure something out. "I'm not ever supposed to see Shay again," he said, after a while.

"Yes," Elise said. "I know. What's your point?"

"My point is that I'm going to."

Elise made a face and crossed her arms. "Can't we talk about something else?"

"No! Listen, Elise, it's really important! When I first met Shay, that was the first vision I ever saw. I saw myself big, and I was hugging Shay." He held up his hand over his head, as high as he could reach. "Like, really big, you know? So I'm going to get to see him again!"

"Yea," Elise said. "But maybe not until you're really big. You might have to wait years."

"Then I'll wait."

"But- years, Arno," she protested. And, yea, years were a long time. Arno had only been alive for seven years so far. He might have to wait at least that long again to see Shay. But he could wait. If he had to.

He felt like he'd had all the life squished out of him when Elise's dad told him he wasn't allowed to see Shay anymore. Knowing that the man was still in his future made things a little easier to bear. He was being reinflated, it felt like, and his mind raced with ideas about what to do to get ready for that far off day. "I can wait for years if I have to! And I'm going to study really hard. Yea…"

He trailed off for a second, imagining the future and what he needed to do to get there. "I'm going to learn everything I can in lessons. And pay more attention to what Ezio's teaching me, so I can use my visions better. And find Shay. And Ezio keeps asking me if I want to take classes to learn how to fight- well, he doesn't say fight, he says punch people in the face, but it's the same thing. I'm going to do that too, so that when I find Shay- he won't have to protect me anymore. I can protect myself, and he won't get hurt."

"That's a lot to do," Elise said doubtfully.

"I don't care," Arno said. "I'll do more if I can think of anything else. I'll do everything."

"Then I'll help you," Elise said. "Duh."

"Duh yourself," he told her. "I'm not kidding. When I see Shay again, he's going to be proud of me. I'm going to save him."

"Even though he killed your daddy?" Elise asked doubtfully.

Arno nodded. "I love Shay most of all," he said. "Because he takes care of me no matter what. Then daddy, because he is- he was my daddy. Then you and Kadar. Then… probably Desmond and Gist."

"So you're not mad, because you love Shay more?"

"Because I love them both, but I already knew daddy was going to die. I don't want to lose both of them." He took Elise's hand in his, and brought them both up to his chest. "There's a hole in here and it hurts and it's not going to stop until I don't have to miss him anymore."

"Then I'll help," Elise promised. "If it's important, I'll help." She hugged him, and didn't let go for a good long time, until Arno was ready.

-/-

 **[Alternate Universe #7]**

Arno always came back. And sometimes he brought food, and sometimes he just sat with Shay and talked to him. There weren't a lot of good things in his life, which was mostly cold nights and wet days, but there was always Arno. And when Shay really, really needed him, Arno was there.

 **-/-**

 **End of part one. Coming up, a time skip, more of Shay's universes, and... other stuff! _Cool_ stuff I promise. :)**


	18. Chapter 18

Arno woke up.

It was four in the morning, still dark outside, and quiet as the grave. Arno dressed in absolute silence, grabbed his backpack, and climbed out his bedroom window. His window overlooked the least steep part of the roof, and that was where he sat down, cross legged, and watched the moon.

He wished there were stars here, but the light pollution meant only the very brightest were visible with the naked eye. Still, it meant there was enough background light around that he was able to pull out a notebook and pen from his backpack, and start writing.

 _Dear Shay_ , he wrote, and then stopped, thinking hard. When he was little, and having trouble learning to write, Leonardo had told him to practice. Arno had told him he didn't want to practice because it was boring. Leonardo had told him to practice by writing letters to Shay. And there was nowhere to send them, but… Arno did it anyway. (It really helped, too. Within a couple of months, he was better at reading and writing than either Kadar or Elise). Back then, right after Shay was taken away and Arno had just felt lonely all the time, he'd written almost every day. Then life happened, and he grew up, and got busy…

He didn't write very much anymore. Not as much as he used to. Not as much as he should. But it was August third, and Arno had never skipped writing to Shay on his birthday. He looked at the paper, and tried to think of something to say. It had been a year since he'd last written (a _whole year_ \- either Arno needed to be better about writing, or Shay needed more birthdays). There had to be something he could say.

 _Dear Shay,_

 _So… it's been a whole year, since the last letter. Sorry. I'm sorry. I guess it doesn't matter, probably. It's not like I can send these anywhere. Hope would just take them away, I think. I don't really know what they're doing to you anymore. Not since they put security on you, and that was… what, eight years ago? You could be dead, maybe. I hope not. I really… I_ really _hope not._

 _Sorry. I didn't mean for this to be so depressing. I'll change the subject, okay?_

 _I'm seventeen now. I got my driver's license a couple of months ago! It took a couple tries. I hit a mailbox the first time, and they didn't pass me, even though it didn't do any damage at all to the car! Really not fair. But, um… anyway, I never told Elise's dad about that, I told him the insurance was out of date and then I went back a month later and didn't hit mailboxes and passed! I don't have a car, but it's still really cool to have the license. Like… I_ don't _drive, but I_ could _, if I had a car._

 _I'm almost done with high school. Senior year starts in a couple weeks, and then there's college applications, and prom is this year too. I want to ask Elise. But I think that might be weird, you know? Like… what if everything goes really well, and we do… something (haha, let's not talk about that, it would be weird). But what if things go… good, and we have to come home to her dad? That would be the most awkward thing ever._

 _Kadar got a little bit arrested last week. Just a little bit, though, it's okay. He was out with this girl, and she got really drunk. Like, call an ambulance and make sure they don't puke on their own vomit drunk. Anyway, they were at a party, and the cops got called. Most of the other kids ran away, and Kadar stayed with this girl in the bathroom to make sure she was okay. So… technically there were no handcuffs or anything, and they didn't take him down to the station or anything, but they called Desmond and he has some community service or something now. Kadar, I mean, not Desmond. But most of us think what he did was pretty cool._

 _I haven't done anything cool like that. I mean, my biggest accomplishment is a license I can't even use. It's been ten years, and I haven't even done anything to help you. I'm horrible, Shay. I miss you. What am I supposed to do?_

… _Damn. Sorry. I got depressing again. I'll just… stop now. But I'll try and write more. (I know, I know, I said that last year too). Happy birthday, Shay._

 _Love,_

 _Arno_

He looked at the rambling mess in front of him. The ink had run and smeared in places, and the content was hardly any better. Still, he thought as he put his letter into an envelope (no stamp, because what was the point?), it wasn't like anyone was going to read it. Then, when he had packed the envelope away and settled back more comfortably on the roof, he looked into the future.

He was getting really good at it now. Unless he was really tired or stressed, he didn't see random visions anymore. Just the ones he wanted to see. Ezio was a really good teacher, and Arno really wanted to learn.

But the point was, that he could see what he wanted now. If he wanted, he could find out everything about Shay. He could watch every single moment of Shay's future, but Arno didn't want to. If, by some happy miracle, he got to see Shay again in the future, it had to be a surprise. The good things in life were better when they were unexpected.

There was only one vision that Arno allowed himself, because he'd already seen it. The _very first time_ he'd seen Shay, it had come with a vision of Arno hugging him. Arno stared upward into the gradually lightening sky, and brought the vision into reality in front of him.

Shay looked exactly the same as he had the last time Arno saw him, just a little paler. And that was a little weird, wasn't it? It wasn't something Arno had thought about when he was seven (because anyone over twenty had looked old to him at the time), but Arno was old enough now to think something was fishy. It had been ten years. Shay should look older than he had then.

Arno, the Arno in the vision, looked barely older than Arno on the roof. He felt his breath catch as he saw it, because it was so unexpected. It had been a year since he'd last seen this piece of the future, and he'd had a growth spurt in that time. A year ago, he hadn't looked like that. Now he did.

So that meant… it was almost time. Maybe a year, eighteen months on the outside. Very soon, he was going to be with Shay again. Maybe just for a minute. Maybe they would only have time for that hug before Hope and her minions took Shay away again. Arno refused to check. The future was likely to be grim and unfair (it usually was), but as long as he didn't know, for absolute sure, Arno would still be able to hope for the best.

-/-

 **[Alternate Universe #120,449]**

"Can I help you?"

"Um- yea. Yea, actually."

Shay sighed and closed the top of his laptop to look at the guy that had stopped in front of him. Obviously a freshman. It was kind of weird, actually, a year ago he hadn't been able to tell freshman apart from any of the other students on campus. But now that he was a senior, it was like he'd gained the magical power to identify freshmen just by looking at them. They were all… baby faced and clueless, and he kept wondering why he hadn't been able to tell who they were before.

"What do you want?" he asked, and the freshman winced at his impatient tone. Something in the face he made almost had Shay feeling bad.

"I just- I can ask someone else-"

"Come on, Arno," Shay snapped. "Just tell me."

"Can you tell me how to get to the math building?" he smiled nervously. "I'm completely turned around, and I have a class in like-" he checked the time on his phone. "Eight minutes."

Shay shook his head. "It's in a weird corner of campus," he said. "You'll never find it unless someone shows you where it is."

"Oh."

Shay stood up, shoving his laptop into his bag and grunting a little with the effort. "I'll take you," he said. "Come on, already."

But they only made it a few feet before Shay heard a soft, "Um…" behind him. He turned around.

"What?"

"How did you know my name?"

Shay frowned at him. "I didn't. I _don't_ know your name."

"You do! You called me Arno."

"What kind of a stupid name is Arno?" Shay asked, because… yea, of course this was Arno. But thinking about how he knew that made Shay's head hurt. He'd never met this kid before.

"It's _my_ name," Arno said. He sounded hurt. "I like it."

"I…" There was something going wrong inside his head. He was seeing flashes of other things, but they all vanished, floated away when he tried to focus on them. "I think I met you before?" But he hadn't! "I don't remember-"

"Hey," Arno said. He was suddenly at Shay's elbow, looking up at him because he was just that little bit shorter. "Are you okay? You look really pale. Maybe you should-"

But then suddenly it all burst through Shay's mind, a flood of water breaking down a dam. He remembered- universe after universe after endless, horrible universe, a million Arnos and a million Shays, and back at the beginning- impossibly far away, now- a sweet faced little boy with bright blue eyes. Shay took a deep breath that felt like a sob, and reached out to hug Arno. It wasn't the right Arno, but it was something and- and- oh _God_ , how long had he been stuck like this? Traveling from world to world without even remembering?

"Whoa!" Arno protested. "Hey man, you can't just do that!"

"Just shut up for a second," Shay muttered, but it was more than a second, it was at least five full minutes before Shay's mind disconnected from this particular universe and went hurtling along to the next one.

The same as it had been, for however long he had been trapped here. Except that now… now, he remembered. Too much, probably, the weight of… of thousands of accumulated universes in his head was an ache that wouldn't stop hurting. He took deep breaths, trying to focus. But other worlds were crowding in on him, he couldn't…

Shay screamed and screamed until his throat hurt. He wanted to go home.

-/-

Hope worked alone these days. She hadn't needed anyone else's help for years, now. It was better that way. She couldn't trust anyone else not to mess things up, and she was so close now. There was no more room for screw ups. Over the years, she had convinced William to replace the assistants he provided for her with guards to keep the curious or misguided away. After all, this was important not just to her, but to everyone, whether they knew it or not. Access to infinite other worlds meant infinite resources, infinite space, no more shortages of anything. No one would go hungry, natural resources could be accumulated as quickly as they were used up, people wouldn't have to live packed tightly together in dirty, overcrowded cities.

When she figured out how to get from one world to another, Hope was going to save the world. _All_ the worlds.

And then suddenly, Shay was screaming.

It almost gave her a heart attack, because it had been a decade since Shay last moved at all. And now, all of a sudden, there he was shouting at the top of his lungs. Hope whirled around, long hair whipping behind her, and rushed to Shay. No, no _no_. She had invested so much time in this project already, she couldn't afford to see it self-destruct now!

Shay screaming was a strange sight. His eyes were shut, his body still, only his mouth was open, and he was screaming. Hope hovered over him, hands not quite touching him. She didn't _want_ to comfort him, and wouldn't know how even if she'd tried. The number of tubes and wires feeding into him had multiplied over the years, so that there was no room for touch.

Finally, he calmed by himself. He seemed to have screamed himself hoarse, which at least spared Hope's ringing ears. Shay's mouth worked silently for a few minutes longer, and then he settled again. Hope sighed, sitting down, and leaned over to check his vitals. Normal, although his heartrate seemed slightly elevated. But everything was well within acceptable ranges, so Hope turned back to watch Shay more directly.

His face was the only part of him not covered in wires. There had been a few in the earliest months, but they had restricted Shay's breathing and Hope had relocated them. At the moment, his cheeks were pink with the effort of screaming, almost comically out of place on his snowy pale face. It had been ten years since Shay had moved at all- without sun, he looked about the same color as a fresh sheet of paper. But- and this was the strange part- he looked otherwise unchanged from the day Hope had hauled him in a decade ago.

That was her own doing, of course. They could only use Shay until his body gave out, and the faster he aged, the more quickly that day would come. So Hope had invested in the Fountain of Youth.

Not the mythical fountain of youth, of course. While some people still believed it was out there, somewhere, most people thought it was a hoax or legend. The Fountain of Youth (with Important Capital Letters) was a company based out of Baltimore that had found a way to slow the aging process. It could even stop it completely- provided the person it was used on was unconscious. Mostly it was used by the ultra rich while they were asleep- eight hours of sleep per day meant eight hours less time spent aging, which in turn meant they aged a third slower than most people.

With Shay, who hadn't woken in ten years, it meant that he had not aged, at all. Hope gave his unchanging face- still so young, even while her own had started to grow lines and her first few wrinkles- another look. Then she shook her head and went back to work.

-/-

 **[Alternate Universe #688,429]**

In this universe, Arno was a woman. Shay laughed and laughed, until he was bent over, hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

Arno watched him, hands on her hips, mouth pulled into a thin scowl. "What's the matter with you?" she demanded.

"Nothing." But then he was laughing again, and it felt like he was losing his mind.

-/-

"But I don't want to go," Arno protested.

Elise shook her head and grabbed the car keys off the hook on the kitchen wall. "He's your dad," she said. "You have to visit him."

"He doesn't even know if I'm there or not," Arno pointed out. "The doctors keep telling me his mind is _literally_ in another universe, so it's not even like he's some coma patient that can hear me."

"It doesn't matter." She grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him out of the house. "He's your father, you haven't been by in ages, it's time to go visit."

"I wish he'd just died ten years ago," Arno grumbled. "It'd be kinder."

Elise turned on him, and in one smooth movement, slapped him hard across the face. It was a complete surprise, so that in the aftermath he was left staring at her with his hand on his face. "Elise," he said. "What was that for?"

"He's your _father,_ " Elise said. "I don't care about any of the rest of it, but he's your _father_ , so don't talk like that."

There was no argument for that. At least, none that Arno thought Elise would accept. Half a dozen rebuttals popped into his head, but he swallowed them back. "Sorry."

"No you're not," she said. "But you're going anyway. Get in the car."

He ducked his head and let her lead the way. Neither of them talked again until they were on the highway and driving away. Arno slumped down on his seat and crossed his arms.

"Don't you miss him?" Elise asked at last.

"Dad?" Arno shrugged. "Nah. Not really. I haven't seen him in ten years."

"But he's your dad."

"But he was always an ass," Arno muttered. "Even when he was around, he… wasn't around. He was in- God knows. Countries I didn't even know the names of. Never with me."

"I remember him being around."

"Yea?"

"Well- sometimes. Once in a while."

Arno shook his head. "I learned to break out of the house when I was five and no one ever stopped me. What kind of a father doesn't even notice? Your dad wouldn't have let that slide even once."

"He would have figured it all out eventually," Elise said. "I'm sure he would have."

Arno shrugged, again. A lot of the time, it was easier to just give in and shut up when Elise got really fixed on something. Elise might have argued further anyway, but luckily their exit came up then, and she had to focus on not missing the last few turns. They didn't make this drive often enough to know the directions by heart.

"I'm waiting in the car," Elise said.

"But-"

"I have a book," she said calmly, like that was what he was protesting to. "I won't be bored." She pointed at him and narrowed her eyes. "And you better be in there for a while."

He nodded glumly, got out of the car, and trudged toward the building. Within five minutes, he was in a chair next to his father's bed, staring out the window so that he wouldn't have to look at his face. It was older every time Arno came by.

But the room was boring, and gradually Arno's eyes drifted back toward his father.

"You…" he didn't want to say anything. No one was going to hear his words, what was the point of that? But, ah… " He rubbed at his face. "You kind of suck. You've never done anything but leave, you-"

And then he was crying, like an asshole. Stupid. Stupid, stupid…

But it was only about thirty seconds after that when he felt Elise come and sit down next to him. The chair was built for one, but they both tended toward skinny, and they just barely fit. She squeezed his hand and he leaned on her until he had calmed down enough to speak again. "I hate coming here."

She nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."

And then they sat in silence for a good while longer, because this was easier to bear when he didn't have to be alone.

-/-

"I pulled those results," Malik said, tossing a manila folder at Altair's head.

He caught it, just barely. The folder was rubber banded together, which kept the contents from flying everywhere, but Altair glared at him anyway. "You didn't have to throw anything."

"And you didn't have to send me upstairs to be the distraction," Malik said testily.

"If I could send you anywhere, Malik, I would have sent you away years ago."

Malik did not even deign to reply. He'd been officially working with Altair as a research assistant for three years now. Before that, he'd hung around sort of unofficially. Altair would never in a million years admit it, but he'd gotten used to the kid's presence by now.

"Anyway," Malik said. "You got your stupid results." But he crossed the room quickly and peered over Altair's shoulder as he started spreading papers on the table. They both scanned the numbers there, and eventually Malik sighed.

"Still alive, at least," he said.

"But not doing too well," Altair murmured. Shay's physical readouts were much the same as they had been the year before. But his brain patterns were a mess, ragged and all over the place.

"Maybe that explains the screaming," Malik suggested. They worked just underneath Hope's lab, researching Altair's powerset. It kept them both interested (and gave Malik an excuse to poke and prod occasionally at Altair, which he _obviously_ enjoyed). Yesterday, they had been at work when Shay started screaming at the top of his lungs, which was when they had decided to check up on him earlier than they had planned. There were guards there all the time, which was why Malik had been set up to basically annoy them into _escorting_ him away from the tower while Hope was away on her lunchbreak. While they were gone, Altair went upstairs and sent every record he could down to the printers. These were the papers Malik had just come back with.

Going upstairs had been weird. It was always weird, going up there and seeing what Hope had done to Shay. Once upon a time, Altair had believed Shay needed to be locked up for his own protection. For everyone's protection. But now, after ten years full of daily talks with Desmond (and visits, at least two or three times a year), he knew he'd been wrong. After seeing Hope cut him apart, dissect him like a corpse, Altair truly _believed_ that Shay deserved to be free. It had become one of the few certainties in his life, at this point. One day, Shay would leave this place. And that would be a good thing.

"What are we going to do?" Malik asked.

"I don't know." Altair frowned at the papers in front of him. Then he stood and went to the shelf where they hid each year's reports. He spread these out as well ("You're making a mess!" Malik protested), and compared the data. "Look at this," he said, tracing a line along each consecutive year. "Steady decline in brain patterns, and then yesterday-" he jabbed at the new papers. "Steep decline. Shay doesn't have much time left."

"Can I suggest something?" Malik asked.

"I couldn't stop you if I wanted to."

"We should get everyone together," Malik said. "Everyone that cares what happens to Shay. Then we decide what to do."

"They should know," Altair agreed. He stood, already reaching for Desmond in his mind. "I'll start talking to the others. Clean those up?"

"What?" Malik scowled at the papers all over the table. "You made the mess!"

Altair grinned at the indignant expression. "And you're the one getting class credit for this."

"Altair!" Malik shouted after him, as he hurried out of the room.

 **-/-**

 **Haha yea. Ten years is a long time. But... Arno needs his time to shine. :) Shay saved him when he was a kid by basically showing him he deserved someone that paid attention to him. Now it's Arno's turn to step up to the plate and save Shay.**


	19. Chapter 19

**[Alternate Universe #7]**

How many times had he been here?

Memory was a fickle thing, now. It was like there were two parts of him, one that could remember… travelling. Yes. Travelling was a good description of this. That almost made the whole thing sound like an adventure, instead of a torture. And yet there was also this other part of him, submerged in each world, helping him so that he knew… who… he was supposed to be.

(Who _was_ he supposed to be? Under it all, under all the layers of people he'd had to be, he couldn't… _quite_ … remember… which Shay was he? It was terrifying)

So he could remember arriving in this world before today. More than once, actually, more often than some of the others, maybe a dozen times or more. But there were also years of memories of living in this world mixed up with everything else. At least this was a world that wasn't as hard as some of the others.

This was the world where he was just some street kid. Worthless, by every conceivable sense of the word. Except in Arno's eyes. This was the world where Arno was the adult and Shay was the child, and Shay… right now he liked the thought of having to comfort him.

So as soon as the world settled around him, Shay took off running. In this universe, he knew where Arno lived, even if he had never been there before. Today was the day to change all that. Shay ran out of the slums where (this version of himself) he had lived his whole life. He kept running, until he found himself on streets full of big, clean houses.

This was where Arno lived. Shay ran to his house and knocked on the door- it wasn't until he'd finished pounding on the wood and stepped back that he remembered to feel nervous. In this world, he didn't belong here. Except that he belonged with Arno, always, no matter what world it was.

The door opened, and Arno was there. Thank God it was Arno. Shay wasn't sure what he would have done if anyone else had answered the door. "Shay?" Arno asked. He sounded surprised, which was fair. He didn't know. No one knew. Almost a million universes, and Shay hadn't been keeping track, but he thought that he must have been to almost all of them by now.

Almost a million worlds, and not one person in any of them knew that Shay was trapped, bouncing between universes.

He hugged at Arno's legs. His dirty face and hands left marks on Arno's clean clothes, but to his credit, Arno did not move away. He moved down, crouching to be closer to Shay and put them on the same level. "What happened?" he asked.

Shay whimpered (because this body was small, and that was as good of an excuse as any to cry). Arno put his hand in Shay's hair, stroking him soothingly. "Tell me what happened," he said. "Did somebody hurt you?"

"No. Sorta." He nodded. "It's complicated."

"Do you want to talk?"

"No." Yes? "You won't believe me, and I don't want you to think I'm crazy."

"I promise not to judge."

"I… want to go home," Shay said. That was true. And it seemed safe enough to say.

"Where is home?" Arno asked. "I thought you were from around here."

He was in this world. The Shay from here had never left the city. "I'm from another universe," he whispered. "I'm cursed. I keep jumping between worlds, and I don't know how to stop."

"That's-"

"In five minutes, or five hours, I'll be gone from here. But I can't go home."

"Shay…" Arno pulled him back so that they were looking at each other. Shay stared at his bright blue eyes. "You're not crazy, but you're sick. You need to get off the streets. Get medicines, food. You'll feel better."

"No." Shay shook his head. "I wish you were right, but you're not."

Arno pulled Shay up and into his arms. Shay would have argued, if he were less upset. Instead, he held on until Arno had taken the pair of them back inside. It was nice in there. The street kid part of his mind marveled at how warm it was, even at night. The rest of him smiled a little, because this whole house was Arno's space, and it just reflected his entire personality.

Arno put him down at the kitchen table. He brought over milk and cookies. Shay moved once Arno was sitting down, so that they were sitting next to each other instead of on opposite sides of the table. "I'm not crazy," he said again.

"Then why don't you tell me what your home is like?"

"Home is different from here," Shay said. "I'm older."

"How old?"

"Older than you."

That made Arno smile a little, which would have been nice except that he so obviously thought it was a joke. "So I'm in that world too?"

"You're the most important person in that world," Shay said. "You're important to me, because you're you. And you're important to other people, because you're psychic."

"Psychic?"

Shay reached way up and touched the space around Arno's eyes. "Blue eyes are what mark psychics," he said. "Blue eyes like yours. In my world that's a big deal."

Arno still didn't look like he believed him. Shay shook his head and looked down. "I'm not crazy," he said. It was the third time he'd said it so far, and maybe if he just kept saying it, he would eventually believe it was true. "And um… tomorrow, or in an hour, or whatever, when I'm in some other world, please don't hold it against this Shay here. He doesn't really have anything but you."

"It's okay, Shay," Arno said. He leaned over and hugged him again, and that was the last thing that Shay felt from that world. In the next moment he was somewhere else, once again surrounded by a world full of people that didn't know how far from home he was.

-/-

Arno pulled Elise out of bed on the first day of school. She moaned and complained the entire morning, and didn't even open her eyes until they were halfway out the door and Arno offered her a cup of coffee.

"I love you, Arno," she said seriously. Early in the morning, when she was only just waking up and getting her dose of coffee, that was when Elise was the most intense about things. It was like she could only focus on one thing at a time before caffeine, and so whatever it was that she chose to focus on was of more than usual importance.

"Sure you do," Arno said tiredly. Those words would have meant so much more coming from an Elise that was all the way awake and looking at _him_ instead of at a coffee mug.

"You bring me coffee," Elise said, like that explained everything.

"Maybe I should get a job at starbucks."

She gasped with exaggerated horror. "And give _other_ people coffee? I might get jealous." Then she went back to staring at the coffee like it held the answer to all of life's mysteries.

"Come on," he told her, and gently guided her to the bus stop at the end of the block.

There was a big rock on the sidewalk, next to the corner where the bus came to pick up Arno and Elise and the half dozen others in the neighborhood. Arno played with his phone for a while, until someone hit his shoulder and he almost fumbled and dropped it on the ground.

"Long time no see, pisspot."

"Hey, Bellec," Arno said, trying to smile. He didn't _dislike_ Bellec, but he wasn't a friend or anything. Still, there was no point insulting someone he had to see all the time. Not only were they in the same school, now that Arno had finally been allowed into the public school system, but they kept running into each other in other places. After Shay was taken away, Ezio had suggested that Arno start self-defense class. And somehow, one class had turned into a whole course, and when he got bored he switched to another discipline. He'd tried half a dozen over the years, and every piece of knowledge he learned, to protect himself or even (he was ashamed to admit) hurt others made him feel safer.

Bellec, on the other hand- Arno was pretty sure Bellec just liked hitting people.

"What classes are you taking this semester?" Bellec asked, ignoring the flat disinterest in Arno's voice.

"Just the usual," Arno said vaguely. "AP calc, Mrs. Potter's English class, physics-"

"Are you taking gym this year?"

He shook his head and Bellec made a disapproving noise. Arno ignored him, because if Bellec wanted to think _gym_ was the one class at school worth taking, that was his own loss.

"Hey," Elise grumbled from her rock. "Don't make fun of him."

"Do you need a girl to stand up for you now?" Bellec asked, still looking at Arno, rather than Elise.

"I'm not standing up for him," Elise said. "I'm squishing a tiny, little, annoying worm." She squinted at him and squeezed her thumb and forefinger together, like she was crushing a grape or something.

"Okay," Arno said quickly. "Elise, drink more coffee, you're missing some brain cells this morning."

She nodded somberly and mouthed 'okay' at him before returning her attention to the coffee. Bellec snorted at the pair of them and muttered something obnoxious under his breath before stalking off to bother somebody else.

"He's an ass," Elise muttered.

Arno shrugged. "Could be worse."

"Does he think you're his friend or something?" Elise asked. "Because you deserve better friends."

"Sure," he said. "Friends like you?"

She smiled at him. "Well I hope that's a given, after all this time."

The bus pulled up then, and when Arno offered his hand to pull Elise off the rock and to her feet, she took it without hesitation. "My lady," he said, bowing grandly. For a second, she almost looked like she might laugh.

Then she gave him a look that sparked like fireworks, mischievous and warm, and bobbed down in something like a curtsy, which ended in her tripping over her own feet and falling sideways into him.

Time seemed to freeze. Arno didn't even breathe, worried that the slightest shift would ruin this moment. His heart didn't freeze, though, it sped up, beating a million miles an hour. How, exactly, had this happened? It would have been easier to fall in love with anyone else in the entire world, but his heart didn't seem to care. Elise was difficult, she was hot one second and cold the next, absolutely unshakeable in her beliefs and unstoppable in her convictions.

"Get a room!" Bellec shouted, and there was a chorus of jeering from what sounded like every other person on the bus.

Elise pushed herself off Arno, and clearly the coffee was doing its job because she looked very awake now. "Pig!" she shouted, and she went charging onto the bus to shout at him and/or kick his ass. Arno hesitated only long enough to hide his smile before following.

-/-

Desmond was expecting Malik at his front door for quite a while before he actually heard the knock. "You," he said, as he answered the door and pointed Malik toward the kitchen. "Are late."

"You knew I was coming." He scoffed, waving a dismissive hand as soon as he finished speaking. "Of course you did. Altair told you."

"But that's the only thing he told me," Desmond added. "What's wrong? I know he would have come with if he could, so what happened?"

"Shay."

"Is he awake?" Desmond asked. It was like an abrupt jolt of energy spiking down him from his head to his foot. "Is he-"

"Getting worse," Malik interrupted. There was no pity in him, so different from his brother. Kadar would have been a mess of nerves, worried for Shay and spouting off ideas to make things better. Malik just watched Desmond, waiting for a reaction. "Screaming. Just falling to pieces."

"We waited too long." Desmond turned away in disgust, shaking his head. "What kind of friends _are_ we?"

"He's not my friend," Malik said. "I don't know him."

"Not helping," Desmond grunted. "Are we supposed to do something now? To help Shay? It's not too late, is it?"

"I think it might be," Malik said. "Altair disagrees. Either way, he and Liam are flying out at the end of the month to meet up so we can all discuss it together."

Desmond nodded. "I should- Gist will want to know about this. He's off on another one of his crazy expeditions, but he'll come back for Shay."

Malik nodded, but volunteered no more information. Instead, he asked, "Can I stay here? Just until Altair comes. I told the school a family emergency came up, so I don't need to go back for a while."

"Sure," Desmond said. "Kadar will be ecstatic."

"No," Malik disagreed. "He'll be glad I'm here. But he'll be more worried for Shay." He looked up at Desmond, a cautious glance. "Liam sometimes talks about what he used to be like before his accident," he said. "What great, heroic feats did he perform when he was here that makes all of you still care about him ten years on?"

"Nothing."

Malik's eyes opened all the way up, and Desmond thought, _"Ah, alright then,"_ because for the first time he could really see Malik's resemblance to his brother. "Nothing?" he repeated, sounding almost scandalized. "I don't understand."

Desmond needed to keep moving, when he got nervous. So as he tried to gather his thoughts together, he stepped into the kitchen and started pulling open cabinets, looking for something to do as much as for something to eat. "What has Kadar ever done that makes you keep flying out to see him and yell at me for letting him do things you don't like?"

"That's different," Malik said. "He's my brother."

"Well-"

"But Shay's not family," Malik argued. "He's not related to any of you. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have any family at all still alive."

"Not all family is related by blood," Desmond said, with absolute conviction. He hadn't even met Altair before they were came to school together, but he was more family than anyone else in the world. "Shay _proved_ how much he cared. I was with him when he went to talk to Achilles, right before the old man died. I told him to run, and he insisted on going back to see Arno first. I don't know many people that would do that, you know? He really cared about the people in his life, and that makes him as good as family to me. I'll do whatever I can to save him, because I know he'd do the same if our positions were reversed."

"I don't think I understand," Malik admitted.

"Well…" There was no food at all in his kitchen. Why was there no food in his kitchen? Probably Kadar. The poor kid had finally hit a growth spurt, and some of the softness that had survived his childhood was finally going away. Ironically, this growth spurt seemed to involve eating as much as possible. He brought a jar of pickles out with an apologetic shrug. "Maybe you should be talking to Kadar, then," he said. "Instead of me."

-/-

"It's Connor, isn't it?"

Hope had spent a few days planning her next move, after Shay's little meltdown. It was clear to her that she needed to change something. After some careful observations, she had picked an assistant. Someone with no connection to Shay, or to anyone else as far as Hope could tell. She'd noticed him before, hanging around the research tower, not because he worked there but because most students preferred to stay away. He would sit against the side of the building, scribbling at his homework or reading a book. Sometimes, he did nothing but sit and stare into the forests on the edge of the property like he would rather be there than here.

He wasn't a student any longer, of course, but she vaguely remembered him from when he had been. And he didn't work in the tower, which meant she wouldn't be pulling him away from anything important.

"Connor," he agreed, nodding at her. "And you're the old hag at the top of the tower, right?"

She had not expected that answer, and it threw her. Or maybe it was just being outside that was doing that. When had she last seen sunlight? "Hag?" she repeated. And then- " _Old?"_ Thirty seven was not old.

"It's what the students call you," he said, and it was impossible to tell from his expression whether he agreed with them or not. "Because you only come out at night, and scowl at everyone that looks at you."

"I don't-" Hope caught herself scowling at him, and made an effort at putting on a more neutral expression. "Never mind. What do you do here, Connor? Do you work here?"

"Sometimes," he said easily. "I work outdoors. With plants and things, mostly. Sometimes I get lucky, and find something rare or new that someone can use in potion making, but mostly I just like being outdoors." He crossed his arms. "But I can tell you're not interested in what I'm doing here, so what did _you_ come here to ask?"

"Are you working on anything at the moment?" she asked. "Or are you available for a bit of freelancing?"

He looked like he was considering it. "A chance to see what the hag does in her tower?" he asked. "I can spare some time for that."

"One condition," she said. "Stop calling me hag."

"Then spend some time in the sun," he said.

"When my work is _over_ ," Hope snapped. She gestured him into the tower. "And until then, I still need your help."

She heard Connor sigh at that, no doubt already regretting that he had agreed. She didn't much care what he thought, as long as he didn't go back on his word. The guards at the top of the tower nodded to her as they passed, but treated Connor with suspicious looks until Hope waved at them to stand down.

Then they were inside. Hope stood to one side, allowing Connor to take in the sight of Shay lying on his table. She had expected surprise, but not the way his mouth fell open in shock and his eyes seemed to suddenly bulge. "So this is what happens to people that come in here?" he demanded. "You do this to them?"

"There has only ever been him," Hope said primly. As if there was anyone else in the world that deserved what had happened to Shay. "And he… volunteered."

"Volunteered?"

"Of course." In a manner of speaking. The same way that criminals volunteered for jail sentences.

Connor's expression settled into something less horrified and more cautious. Hope almost expected him to walk away then and there, but he stood his ground. "What do you need me to do?"

"So you agree to stay?"

"Not until I hear what you expect from me."

They watched each other for a moment, and then Hope pointed at Shay. "I need to move him," she said. "He's not safe here."

"No," Connor agreed. "He doesn't look safe at all."

"I meant from _other_ people," she said. "Listen, he's in a delicate medical state, and he needs to be moved before the people that are looking for him actually manage to find him."

"And these people… he's really in danger from them?"

"Oh, yes," Hope said, with as much sincerity as she could muster.

"Then I suppose I'll help," Connor agreed reluctantly. "Just tell me what I have to do."

"First," Hope said, turning from Connor to Shay. "We wake him."


	20. Chapter 20

**[Alternate Universe #339,092]**

Nothing was true.

It was a cheap platitude that the Shay of this universe had abandoned years ago, but to the Shay that could not escape the never ending horror of the worlds inside his own head, it seemed… fitting.

Nothing was true. How could it be, when the world around him was never the same from day to day, when an enemy could change to a friend and then to a lover in the space of a single heartbeat, when even his own memories shifted like sand when he tried to pick them out.

Shay crouched on a rooftop in what looked like France. Well- that was cheating a bit, really. He _knew_ this was France, because the new memories in his head told him it was. Shay winced as the wave of this-world's-Shay's memories washed through his mind. Something about killing assassins (and didn't that seem sort of ironic, when assassins were supposed to be the ones that killed people? Wasn't that basically the definition of assassin?).

He rubbed at his forehead and looked blankly down at the streets below him. What was he supposed to do here? Maybe it didn't matter. He could just… sit here for a minute, until it was time to travel to the next world. Close his eyes for a minute. He couldn't remember when he had last slept, and it was getting harder to stop his mind from just breaking into a million pieces or melting into sludge. Sometimes, he caught himself wishing for the days when he didn't _know_ that he was trapped and travelling across the universes. At least there had been less stuff inside his head.

His head dropped forward, and his eyes drifted shut. But he had barely gotten comfortable when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"No," Shay sighed. "Leave me alone- just for a minute…"

"Shay."

He looked up reluctantly, and then did a double take. He had seen countless versions of Charles Dorian before this one, but none that seemed as… _solid_ as this one. Shay ogled him like an idiot. "You must be from my world," he said.

"I think so," Charles agreed, sitting down next to him. "Sort of a surprise to me, too."

"Why are you in another world?" Shay asked.

"It's a bit of a long story. Why are _you_ here?"

"Dunno," Shay mumbled. "I keep jumping from world to world and I can't go home. I can't even remember home…"

"Nothing?"

"A little boy," Shay said softly. "With bright blue eyes. Arno." He hugged himself, as if it could keep the loneliness away as effectively as the cold. Charles watched him, apparently considering saying something. But he didn't.

Shay didn't say anything either. He dropped his head back into his hands and squeezed his eyes shut- seeing Charles had set off something in his head, and it felt like his brain was being used as a drum.

"You're a bit of a mess, aren't you?" Charles asked, patting him companionably on the shoulder.

Shay nodded without bothering to argue.

"That's alright," Charles told him. "Things will get better."

Shay lifted his head at that, staring disbelievingly at Charles. "Things will get _better_?" he repeated. "That's all you have to say? Things are as bad as they can possibly be, and I can't do anything to change that. How could anything possibly get better?"

"When I first came here," Charles said. "To this world, I mean, I thought everything was ruined forever. My wife had recently died, and I was a mess because of that. I was in a completely different universe from my son, and I would never get the chance to make up for all the ways I hurt him through my own self-centeredness." He shrugged. "I've had a lot of time to think out here."

"I can tell."

"And then things got better." Charles sounded supremely calm as he spoke, so that Shay almost envied him. "This universe is very different from home, but it's not like I have a way back. When I accepted that- and I won't say it was easy to do- I was able to move on with life here."

"But it's not _your_ life," Shay protested. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"It used to. Until I realized there was nothing I could do about it. It's been ten years since I got here, and at this point, the only regret I have is Arno. I got a second chance here, which is-" he laughed. "Very strange, but at least this time I didn't have to make the mistakes over again. I can make sure he knows he's loved. But I can never go back home and undo the hurt I caused there."

"Never say never."

"It's been ten years," Charles repeated. "I'm not holding out much hope anymore. But _you-_ you can't stay in one universe, you admitted that yourself. Someday, you'll get home. I need you to tell Arno that I'm sorry."

"I will."

"It's important."

"Okay, I know!" Shay frowned at him. "I'm glad you're at peace here."

"I am. I found a cause I can believe in, and a son that loves me."

"So that cause…" Shay trailed off rather than finish his sentence, details of this world still trickling into his mind.

"I know, I know, assassins and templars and secret, ancient wars- it all sounds a little insane. But that's the world we're living in."

"Sure," Shay scoffed. "For now."

"It was good to see you again," Charles said. "Especially since this world's Shay is in the city to kill me."

"I'm sorry about that."

"Not your fault. Just take care of Arno."

"I would do that anyway," Shay said seriously. "It's _Arno_ we're talking about."

"Just making sure," Charles said. He stood up and made ready to leave. "I'm going to get out of here before your mind jumps into some other universe, and this world's Shay gets back to trying to kill me."

Shay nodded, and watched Charles until he disappeared into the crowds below.

-/-

It took two days of almost constant effort to unhook Shay and sew up the dozens of incisions covering his body. Connor proved to have quick and steady hands, a boon in this situation. He kept quiet during the procedure, apart from the occasional question on what to do next.

But finally they were done. The tubes that had, for ten years, kept Shay live now dangled pointlessly from the machines they were attached to on the other end. Most of them were dripping blood and other fluids, but Shay looked very nearly untouched. A few carefully administered potions had sped the incisions' healing, keeping him from bleeding out and smoothing what would otherwise have been rough scars. Instead, his body was littered with thin red lines, like tally marks littering his body.

"What happens now?" Connor asked.

"We wait for him to wake up," Hope said.

"But you said he's been out for ten years," Connor said, bending over to observe Shay more carefully. "Why would he wake up now?"

"I've been making sure he doesn't wake up," Hope said. "Now that the tubes are out, and nothing is in the way, he should be awake soon."

"How soon?"

"I have no idea," Hope said. "I've never tried anything like this before."

Connor sat back in his chair. (His chair, already. Nothing in this room had belonged to anyone but her in ten years, but Connor had claimed the chair in the corner that she never used, and Hope kept catching herself thinking of it as his) "It's a little creepy, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Waiting for him to wake up."

"I highly doubt he'll be in any condition to _scare_ you when he wakes up," Hope said dryly. "He hasn't moved a single muscle since the day I brought him in, I doubt he'll even be able to sit up."

"I'm not scared," Connor grunted.

But Hope was. She was afraid that Shay was going to die, and that everything she had worked for would die with him. Without Shay, there was no more hope of accessing other universes. Her whole life's work, gone. And she was afraid that people would come for Shay, and take him away from her. And she was afraid… of what he would say when he woke up. (Why did she care?)

"We're going to move him," she decided, moving toward Shay. "Now."

"I thought we were waiting for him to wake up?" Connor got out of his chair and followed Hope toward Shay's table.

"I don't know," Hope mumbled. "I just want him out of here before anyone comes for him." Out of here and back to somewhere safe, where they could put Shay back under before he ever woke up. She would never have to hear whatever Shay had to say to her.

Connor nodded, and they started to move as quickly as possible. "Rumor is," Connor said after a while. "That you and he used to be together."

"A long time ago," Hope agreed.

"But you still worry about him," Connor said. He looked at Hope like he'd figured something out, and smiled like she was doing something kind. "You must really care."

She shrugged and let the room go quiet again, apart from the sound of Shay's ragged breathing between the two of them.

At least Connor's misunderstanding of her motives ended up working in Hope's favor. He was far more helpful from that point forward than he had been before, and they managed to get him downstairs and into a van Hope had arranged for.

"Where are we going?" Connor asked.

But Hope hadn't thought that far ahead. "I don't know," she said. "Somewhere safe. Away from here."

"Well I don't know where would be safe, but away from here is easy enough to manage."

Hope nodded, and put the van in drive. Time to leave the homestead.

-/-

"…should stop for the night."

"If you're tired of driving, I can-"

"No. I just think we need to stop and figure out where to go next."

Shay waited with resignation for the details of this universe to come filtering into his head, but nothing happened. He knew he was lying on something hard, he knew that he was in an unbelievable amount of pain, and that he recognized one of the voices he could hear close by. But that was all.

He opened his eyes.

There was almost no light in the back of the van where he suddenly found himself, but every few seconds they passed a streetlight, and a thin strip of light flashed over the window. Every time this happened, Shay had to squint because his eyes hurt so badly. He tried to sit up, but only managed it after considerable effort. His limbs shook under him, as if the muscles hadn't been used in years.

"Hey." And this came from the unfamiliar voice, the one that Shay could see wasn't driving. "Hope, pull over."

"That's exactly what I've been saying we should do."

"No, I mean immediately. He's awake."

The van stopped so suddenly that Shay fell sideways and hit the ground with a painful thump. Fuck this world. What was going on, exactly? It felt kind of familiar, but not in a recent way. It felt like he hadn't been here in ages, which maybe explained why the details were so long in coming to him. Or maybe not.

The doors up front opened and then slammed closed in rapid succession. Shay waited. There was nothing else he could do, even if he wanted. Even sitting back up was out of the question.

He could hear voices from outside the van, and then footsteps walking toward him. The back hatch opened, and Hope loomed out of the darkness toward him. Shay watched her, praying that this world's Hope was one that liked him. She was volatile- there were worlds where they loved each other, and other worlds where they would as soon kill one another as have a civil conversation. Right now, as useless as his own body was, Shay was badly in need of a friend.

She slapped him. "Fuck you, Shay," she said.

"What did I do?" he mumbled. His voice was so hoarse the words stuck in his throat, and Shay gasped for breath.

"Wow." The second speaker, a youngish man Shay couldn't remember seeing before, scrambled into the van after Hope. He looked at Shay with a pity that was entirely absent from Hope's eyes. "You look even worse when you're awake."

He was carrying a bottle of water, and with his help, Shay drank gratefully. When the water was gone, Shay coughed and made a few false starts, but eventually managed to make himself heard. "What happened?" His voice still didn't sound like his own, but at least it sounded vaguely human now.

"You had to be moved," Hope said shortly.

"From where?"

"The homestead," the stranger said, and Shay felt his eyes open wide. It was the only expression of surprise he was physically capable of at the moment. Because the homestead was… it was home. His actual universe. Just like that, after all this time.

"How long?" He groaned, and looked down at his own body. First of all, it looked like he was wearing a badly tied hospital gown and nothing else, and second, he was covered in a whole series of red marks that he couldn't remember seeing before. "Who are you?"

"Ten years," Hope said. "This is Connor." She gave Connor a look and headed out of the van. "I'm going to find somewhere to stay for the night. Watch him, Connor."

As if Shay would be able to run if he wanted to.

"She's really worried about you, you know," Connor said when Hope was well away from the van. "I don't know all the details, but there are people coming after you. She's been doing everything she can to keep you away from them."

"How do you know they aren't trying to save me from her?" Shay asked.

"She told me you volunteered for this."

"Look at me," Shay said flatly. "Does it look like I volunteered for _this_?"

Connor didn't quite look at him. He was frowning intensely. "But that's what she told me."

"She _lied."_ Shay took a breath. "Connor, listen. Please- please, I'm begging you. Don't let her do that to me again."

"I don't know if I could stop her from doing what she wants."

" _Kill_ me instead," Shay said desperately. "I can't go back to that."

"No-"

" _Please_."

Connor's lips went thin, and Shay leaned back against the van wall. Ten years, Hope had said. Ten whole years- Arno would be… what. Sixteen? Seventeen?

And that was what broke him. Shay thought about all the things he must have missed. The birthdays, the special events, growing up. Arno probably didn't even remember him anymore. So, feeling like a complete idiot, but not able to stop himself, Shay started to cry. He'd lost a decade of his life, his health, and it felt like his sanity. Things could not possibly get worse.

-/-

"Hey, Ezio." Arno was lying in bed, cell phone pressed against one ear as he stared at the ceiling fan. "This is my third message. Please call me back. I know, we're not supposed to have another lesson until Saturday, but I have this feeling, like…" he huffed out a sigh and scowled at nothing. "You know that feeling, when there's a vision that really wants to be seen, but you're not in the right place or with the right people, and it just won't trigger? I have that right now, and it's driving me crazy. So if you had any suggestions, or anything, about what to do about that, um… call me back."

He hung up and frowned at the ceiling. There was no reason for daily lessons from Ezio anymore, because a lot of the things Arno had left to learn were not the kinds of things that could be taught. He had to figure it out himself, through trial and error, learning things that only experience could give him. So they met once a week, and talked about how things were going. They usually started out with good intentions, but quickly descended into idle gossip about the people in their lives.

"Hey Arno." Elise walked in without knocking, and sat down on Arno's bed next to him. She was holding a textbook, but frowned and shut it when she got a look at his face. "What's wrong with you?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Something at school?"

"No, it's um…" he poked at his head and she poked him too, laughing a little because she clearly wasn't in the mood to take his whining seriously. "Okay, you know that feeling when you're really hungry, but every food you think about eating just doesn't sound appetizing?"

"Sure. So what, you want to go out for food or something tonight?"

"No. But sometimes, there are visions that my brain really wants to have. It's like… self-preservation, I guess. When I was a kid, I just saw visions of pretty much everything I looked at, but now I pick what I want to see."

"I know, Arno," Elise said. "I've lived with you for ten years, I know how you work."

"But sometimes there are things that it's in my best interest to see," Arno said. "Stuff that I wouldn't have thought to look at normally."

"You say look," Elise interrupted. "You don't mean like looking at things the normal way, right?"

"I mean- things trigger visions," Arno said. "So I can look at you, and get some vision of you in the future, and then at the wall and get some vision of the wall in the future- so basically there's something in the world that I need to look at that will cue up some future thing that I need to see."

"What is it?"

He sighed. "And therein lies the problem. I have no idea."

"How do you figure it out?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea, other than sheer blind luck. I'll know it if I see it, but that's it. I'm hoping Ezio will be able to help."

"Well then I guess I hope so too," Elise said. "Hey, in the meantime, do you want to help me with math?"

"Not really."

"Come on." She kicked at his foot and wedged her textbook between them. "It's just one question. I'll be a good distraction from your hungry psychic thing."

"That's not really-" her foot rubbed against his, teasingly, and Arno thought, okay yea, that seemed like a pretty good distraction, as far as distractions went. "Fine. Just one question."

-/-

Shay passed out again not long after he woke. This time, the sleep was natural, and Hope sat and watched his face twitch unhappily in his dreams. Or nightmares, more likely- Hope couldn't imagine that there was anything good at all was running through his mind just then.

She and Connor had gotten rooms in a hotel for the night, but Hope was uncertain what to do with Shay. She didn't know how to get him inside without raising suspicion, but she also didn't want to keep him in the van all night. If something went wrong, they wouldn't even know until morning.

"Damn," Hope muttered. She pressed her fingers to the inside of his wrist, surprised at how steady the pulse there was. There were potions that would get him back on his feet temporarily, but she didn't have them with her because she hadn't thought to bring anything at all with her. She'd just run out of the homestead like a panicked little girl.

Shay's hand suddenly closed around hers. It was a gentle touch, with barely enough strength in his fingers to grasp her palm. When Hope pulled away, his hand slipped off without effort. His eyes never opened, and as far as Hope could tell, he didn't wake up.

"Everything's ready," Connor announced, climbing back into the van. There was something in his expression that hadn't been there before, some wariness that had to be addressed before anything else.

"What did he tell you?" she asked.

To his credit, Connor didn't pretend not to know what she was talking about.

"He said he didn't volunteer for this," Connor said. "And then he begged me to kill him instead of put him back into your experiments."

"He's confused," Hope said. She made her voice as dismissive as possible in the hope that it would make the whole thing seem less important. "He saw some other world where he was betrayed, and his mind hasn't quite caught up to the real world yet."

"He seemed pretty convinced."

"No offense, Connor, but you've been on this project about two days, and you don't understand everything going on in Shay's mind. You can't believe everything you hear from him."

"Maybe it would be better to give him some time," Connor suggested. "If we give him some time in this world, maybe we could get a straight answer about all of this."

"Or maybe we ruin whatever progress I've spent years working toward," Hope snapped.

"Is your project as important as his sanity?"

"Yes," she said, her temper snapping into brittle pieces. " _Yes_. Because- here's what you have to understand, Connor. Shay doesn't count anymore. Not as a human being like you or me. He is too dangerous to be allowed to walk around free- he's already killed one man by sending him to another universe, there's nothing in the world to stop him from killing more. The best he can do now is serve us as a guinea pig. You _can't_ look at him as a person, because you can't use people like that. Shay is a thing, a tool like a scalpel or a screwdriver. That's it."

Connor didn't say anything for a long time. Then he repositioned himself to get a solid grip on Shay, and hauled him out of the van. Connor was a big guy, and Shay was almost withered from his years spent lying in one position.

"Connor!" Hope's voice rose to a sharp hiss as she ran after him. "What are you _doing_?"

Connor didn't slow down, and even with Shay in his arms, Hope had to speed up to stay with him. "Since we've met, you've done nothing but lie to me and act like a generally terrible human being. I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not leaving you alone with him. I guess you're stuck with me."

"You can't do that!"

"I can and I will."

Hope was shaking with rage before they even got to the hotel room. But she wasn't letting Shay out of her sight either, and she wasn't letting him out of her reach.


	21. Chapter 21

School was boring.

Not all of it, of course, but the classes and the homework were both pretty bad. It was only a week and a half into the school year, and already things were shaping up to be just like all the other ones.

Probably the worst part so far was Mrs. West's class. Physics, which wasn't bad by itself (better than biology, not as good as chemistry), but Mrs. West was one of _those_ teachers. Arno had seen at least a dozen of them already, so Mrs. West wasn't really a surprise. On the first day of class, she'd pulled him aside and told him that she had a zero tolerance policy about cheating in her classroom, and that included magical means.

Arno had given up trying to explain that he wasn't going to cheat, even if he could. If a teacher had the attitude going in that Arno was going to cheat, absolutely nothing was going to talk them out of it. So instead he just nodded and looked at the floor until Mrs. West mercifully let him leave.

Today was their first exam. It only covered the concepts they'd practiced during their summer homework, and Arno had spent days on that. But instead of acing it like he knew he could have, he was stuck staring down at his multiple choice bubble sheet, trying to figure out how much he could get away with answering correctly.

If he got all the questions right, Mrs. West would accuse Arno of cheating. If he got most of them right, even. If he got too many wrong, he would get a bad grade. Of course, there was always the option of getting a bad grade _now_ , because that might convince Mrs. West he wouldn't or couldn't see the answers, and then he might be able to actually do his best later in the year.

He glanced up, and saw Mrs. West glaring at him through narrowed eyes. Well, okay then. Maybe she was too suspicious for that. So that meant an entire year of trying harder to not get accused of cheating than actually learning physics.

"Mrs. West!"

The whole room shifted to look at Elise, who was leaning forward with her arm in the air. Mrs. West shifted her gaze from Arno to Elise, without letting up on the glare factor at all. "What's the matter…"

"Elise." She jabbed a finger sideways at Arno. "He's looking at my paper."

"What?" Arno shook his head urgently. "No, Mrs. West, I promise, I'm not!"

"Really, Mrs. West," Bellec called from the back of the room. Arno almost groaned out loud at the fact that Bellec, of all people, was defending him. That was almost worse than no one defending him at all. "If he was looking at anything, it was probably Elise because they're in _love."_

Arno buried his face in his hands as the whole class started to snicker and prayed that Bellec would stop trying to help.

"Pierre," Mrs. West said, pointing at Bellec (There were a few scattered laughs, because Bellec never went by his first name). "Be quiet. Elise, move up here to the front. Arno-" And even though she was giving him a disapproving look, it was somehow less angry than it had been a few minutes ago. She spent the rest of the class period looking down her attendance list and marking homework. And Arno, with the pressure suddenly off him, let himself get most of the answers on the test right.

"I don't get it," he complained to Elise in the hallway after class. "Why did you accuse me of cheating?"

"Because."

He waited for more, but Elise stopped in front of her locker and started fiddling with her lock. "Because _why_?" he demanded eventually.

"Because if you were going to psychically cheat, you wouldn't have to cheat off me, would you? Now she's comfortable having you in class, she's not going to give you the stink eye every time we have a test, and you get to actually pass the class."

"Oh." He flushed a little. "I didn't know you noticed the stink eye."

"I like to think of you as a little brother, Arno," Elise said cheerfully. She pulled something out of her locker and slammed it shut. "I have to watch out for you."

"Um- thanks."

Elise nodded and smiled, and waved at him as she headed down the hall. "I'll see you at lunch, Arno!" she called, just before she disappeared around a corner at the far end of the hall.

Arno stood there next to her locker for a while, thinking about how great his morning had been until she said he was like her brother.

-/-

Shay woke up in an unfamiliar bed, feeling amazingly sane. Comparatively sane, anyway, which was still amazing. Just the feeling of waking up and knowing he was in the same world that he had been in when he fell asleep was something like a blessing. Shay kept his eyes closed and turned his head to one side, burying his face in the pillow to block out the world for just a while longer. He had no doubt that when he opened his eyes and let himself wake up, things would get complicated and hard again. He would have to keep fighting just for the right to not be used as a test subject anymore.

But for now, while no one was bothering him, Shay even caught himself smiling.

It was maybe half an hour later that Shay felt hands on him, lifting him like a child. His eyes flew open and he struggled feebly.

"Hey!" Connor said. "Calm down, I didn't know you were awake."

"What are you doing?"

Connor flipped him over so that he was lying on his other side and stepped back before answering. "The back of your body is covered in bed sores already," he said. "I didn't think you needed to get any more."

"Bed sores?"

"Well, that's what happens when you don't move for a decade," Connor said. "You're lucky they're on your back, you don't have to see them at least."

"Great," Shay grumbled. "More problems. What time is it?"

"2:00," Connor said. "Four days after you fell asleep."

"I've been asleep for four days?"

"Well, if it helps, you sound a lot better," Connor said cautiously. "So it looks like the sleep helped." He gestured around at the room at large. "Hope wanted to move you, but I didn't think it would be a good idea."

Shay nodded. "Thanks."

"I'm not good at this," Connor said after a minute. "This whole bedside manner thing."

"Better than Hope," Shay said, and Connor laughed. He turned serious again quickly, though.

"So is there anyone I need to contact?" he asked. "Family, friends?"

"No," Shay said. "It's been ten years. I wouldn't know how to get in contact with anyone after all this time."

"I can do some research if you give me the names."

"No offense," Shay said quietly. "But I don't know what's going on here or what's changed. I don't know what you want yet."

"You're stuck in bed," Connor said. "Completely unable to move yourself, out of touch with the world for ten years, and you're still more worried about keeping other people safe than you are about yourself."

"I guess. Or maybe I just don't have a choice about what happens to me anymore." Not in a long time, apparently, and maybe not ever again.

"Well then." Connor looked at the door. "Hope should be back soon, she went out to get food."

"Oh no."

Connor nodded. "When she gets back, I'm going to check out the local pharmacy. I've been talking to the guy there, he thinks he has some things that might help you."

"You're telling people about me?"

"Just that I know a guy that's been comatose for years, and needs help recovering. He actually suggested physical therapy, but I don't think that's on the table yet."

"Well what if Hope decides to leave with me while you're gone?" Shay asked. "I can't exactly stop her, can I?"

"I'm taking the van," Connor said. "Also, I'm fairly sure she's not strong enough to carry you."

"But-"

"I'll be back soon," Connor promised. "Then I'll work on figuring out some way to help you."

"But why?" Shay asked. "You don't have to help me-"

"Guess not," Connor said. "But I will."

-/-

When Hope came back, Connor went out, and sat for a while in the van. Talking to Shay was incredibly depressing, and he felt bad for just thinking that. Like the guy didn't have every reason in the world to be depressed.

He sighed, and pulled out his phone to call his dad.

Haytham was creeping up on sixty now, but his voice when he answered the phone sounded exactly the same as it always had. A little distracted and a little terse, the same as always. "Hello?"

"Hey dad. It's Connor."

"Connor." And yes, there was the surprise. "What's wrong?"

"How do you know something's wrong?"

"Why else would you call me?"

Connor sighed. "Dad, I called you three times this month. We talked for an hour and a half last time, what are you complaining about?"

"We would talk more if you moved back here."

Connor groaned pointedly and slouched down in his seat. "Do we have to do the whole guilt trip thing every time I call?"

"Not if you move home."

"You _know_ I need to move around a lot for work."

"You're too smart to be wasting your time on that," Haytham said. "You could get a real job if you applied yourself more. Something that lets you come home at night, maybe start thinking about dating-"

"Can we please not talk about you getting grandchildren right now?" Connor interrupted. "I have something important to ask you."

"Is something wrong?" Haytham asked. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Connor said quickly. "But I have this… friend. And he's kind of in trouble." He hesitated, because maybe Shay didn't want him telling random people about what had happened to him. Besides, it would take too long to explain the whole story. "He's being used as a test subject," he said, summing the whole thing up into what seemed like the most important information. "It's killing him, but the woman in charge of the project won't let him go, and he can't leave himself."

"And?"

"And, what?"

"You're his friend, aren't you?" Haytham asked. "You told me you are. If this friend is counting on you, then of course you have to help him when he can't help himself."

"I don't know how."

There was silence on the line for so long, that Connor almost started to think the call had been dropped, then Haytham said, "You'll figure something out."

"I was hoping you could help me do that."

"Alright," Haytham said. The persistent calmness in his voice kept Connor from getting more upset. "Obviously you need to get him away from the person that's trying to use him as a human test subject. So what are the biggest obstacles to escaping?"

"He can't move by himself," Connor said. "And I don't think he's completely sane."

"Alright. Why can't he move?"

"Muscle deterioration. I'm going to talk to a contact that has some potions that are supposed to help."

"Good," Haytham said approvingly. "As for the insanity, without someone that knows more about these things, I wouldn't feel confident suggesting anything. Just do what you can to support him. Don't let him think he's on his own."

"That sounds like what I was going to do anyway," Connor said.

"See? Then you knew what to do all along," Haytham said, and Connor could have sworn his dad sounded like he was smiling. Weird. "Trust yourself more, Connor, and you'll be fine."

"You think so?"

"I know," Haytham said. "So do what you can from him, get him away, and run somewhere they won't think to look. Call me when you're safe again, and we'll figure out a next step."

"Alright," Connor said. "Thank you, dad."

"Anytime."

-/-

Malik looked completely out of place in the high school cafeteria. He didn't fit, somehow. Arno thought that if everyone else in the school had been drawn in pencil, Malik had been drawn in with permanent marker.

"Hey," he whispered, sliding into a seat next to Kadar. He had to whisper because everyone in the room was staring at Malik like he was an intruder. "Your brother's here."

"Yea," Kadar hissed back. "No kidding, psychic." He was slouched down in his chair like that would hide him from the others.

"What's wrong?" Arno asked. "You don't have a problem with Malik at home."

"That's because we're all used to him," Kadar said. "I have to keep going to school here, and I didn't want anyone to know I have a brother!"

"That's a horrible thing to say," Arno told him.

"Yea, but come on," Kadar said. "He's Malik. He says whatever he wants and does it too, no matter what anyone else thinks."

"Well, yea," Arno agreed. It was hard to argue that- they all knew he'd basically steamrolled Altair into agreeing to let him work with him, for example. "That's what makes him cool. Malik's going to do whatever he wants in life. He's one of those guys that's going to achieve everything he wants, you know? I admire that."

"Sure," Kadar said. "So do I."

"So… maybe I'm missing the point here, but what's the problem?"

"He goes to a super competitive academy for learning magic," Kadar said. "He does research that's so nerdy I don't even understand what he's talking about when he tells me about it. He's got a 5.2 GPA on a 4.0 scale, which I thought was _literally_ impossible. I'm in the anime club and my biggest achievement this year is getting my Spanish teacher to say 'maybe' when I asked her if I could take honors classes this year. After people know him, why would they want to know me?"

Arno shrugged. "I don't know about most people, but I think you're nicer. And more fun to hang out with."

"Well yea, but we've also known each other forever, so you're biased."

"Or I just have good taste in friends."

That finally got a smile- almost lackluster by Kadar's standards- just before Malik sat down on the seat across from them.

"This place is disgusting," he announced. "Do people really eat here?"

Arno and Kadar exchanged looks (with much eyebrow raising), and then Kadar asked, "Why are you here?"

"The front office gave me your schedules."

"I meant at school," Kadar said. "Not in the cafeteria."

"Altair and Liam are here," Malik said. "They have news, and we're all supposed to meet up. As soon as possible."

"What kind of news?" Arno asked. "Good news?"

"Bad news," Malik said. He was very blunt when he said it. "Shay is gone, and they think Hope took him."

"He's _gone_?" Arno repeated. His mouth was open in shock and horror, a parade of horrible outcomes rushing through his mind. Shay could be dead or hidden forever or broken or something else. "What are we going to do about that?"

"I don't know," Malik said. "I assume that's what we're all going to talk about when we're all in one place. You should calm down, though, it's not that big a deal."

Arno stood up abruptly and slammed his hands onto the table between them, which would have been satisfyingly dramatic except that his aim was bad and he got a palm full of gross pizza sauce for his trouble. He didn't back down, though, because he wasn't thinking about being dramatic, he was thinking about being upset.

"It _is_ a big deal," he insisted. "That's my family, and I don't like when my family is in danger. I need to help him, and every time something like this happens, he's just farther away from coming home. So you-" he pointed a finger at Malik, and then stopped because it was dripping pizza sauce onto the table, which suddenly struck him as absolutely ridiculous.

"Come on," Kadar muttered, and absolutely everyone in the cafeteria was staring at them as Kadar pulled Arno away from the table and toward the door. "Time to go, I think."

Malik started to follow them, which was not at all something Arno wanted just then. Kadar glanced back and shook his head at Malik. "You have Elise's schedule, right? Go find her."

When they were safely outside the cafeteria, away from prying eyes, Arno looked at Kadar and said, "I told you that you were the nice one."

"And you're the crazy one," Kadar scoffed.

They were both a little brighter by the time they made it to the front office.

-/-

As Desmond's apartment was the most central, that was where they all met. With Altair and Liam finally in town, there were nine of them crowded into the small space. The two of them, Arno, Elise, Kadar, Malik, Ezio, Leonardo, and of course Desmond. Only Gist was missing, and as he was out of communication range again, he would need to be updated later.

"…so by the time we knew anything about it, Shay and Hope were gone," Altair said, finishing his wrap up of what had happened at the homestead.

"That sounds bad," Ezio said, maybe unnecessarily. Desmond didn't exactly think that needed saying, in light of everything that had just been said, but Ezio was the kind of guy that really liked the sound of his own voice.

"It's worse than bad," Liam corrected. "She has someone helping her now."

"She convinced someone she's sane enough to be listened to," Ezio said. He cursed briefly in Italian, trailing off when Malik gave him a look.

"Who is it?" Arno asked. "What are they like? We knew what we were dealing with when it was just Hope, but what about this new person?"

"Connor Kenway," Altair said. "I don't really know much about him. He's around sometimes, I think he graduated around the same time Hope got ahold of Shay, so I might have taught him before that- he's not the kind of person that sticks in your memory."

"Kenway," Desmond said vaguely. "Shay used to work for a Kenway, didn't he?"

"It has to be just a coincidence," Liam said dismissively. "It's not like it's an extremely uncommon last name, right?"

"I guess not," Desmond agreed. "Alright, so then moving on, where are they, what are they doing, and what do we do?"

"They're… not at the homestead, probably doing bad things, and I have no idea," Liam said.

Desmond raised his eyebrows at Altair, who shrugged. _"Don't look at me,"_ he said. _"He's right, we have no idea what's going on."_

"How do you find someone that's gone missing?" Arno asked glumly. "We don't have enough resources to go looking for three people that could be anywhere in the country. Or even outside the country- we don't know for sure that they didn't cross a border somewhere." Elise rubbed his back, and turned to look around at everyone else in the room.

"We have two psychics in this room," she said. "Why don't we already know where he is?"

"It's hard to pick out something that specific," Ezio said. "If one of us finds him, I could look at their future and pick out the right moment, but we don't know that's going to happen or who will see him-"

"What about Arno's weird feeling?" Elise interrupted.

"Sounds like puberty," Kadar said, and Elise kicked at his ankle without looking.

"I left you a voicemail," Arno told Ezio, who pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a face at it.

"Forgot to charge it," he said. "What's wrong?"

"He said he needs to see some vision but he doesn't know how to trigger it."

Arno frowned at Elise. "I can tell him myself."

"Come on," Ezio said. "I know a trick that will help you."

"But do you think it has anything to do with Shay?" Arno asked.

"It seems pretty coincidental to start having those feelings now, when Shay's in danger," Ezio said. "Hey, Desmond, do you have a decent mirror in your apartment?"

"You can use the bathroom, I guess," Desmond said. "Why do you need a mirror?"

"Come on!" Ezio crossed the room and pulled at Arno's arm until they were both on their feet and moving.

When the door slammed, Kadar rolled his eyes. "Are all psychics so prone to dramatics, or just ours?" he asked.

-/-

Arno was nervous, standing in front of the mirror. "What do I do now?" he asked.

"Cheat," Ezio said confidently. "Look at your own future, figure out how you're going to see what you need. Then go see it."

"That seems complicated."

Ezio shrugged. "Have I ever told you that being psychic is easy?"

"Well, no, you keep telling me it's hard, but I always thought that was just because you liked to complain."

Ezio gave him a friendly knock to the back of his head. "Hey," he said. "Stop stalling."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," Arno sighed. "I managed to figure out it was hard on my own, thanks." But he did as he was told and turned his attention back to his own reflection. "Okay, okay," he mumbled. Looking into his own future was weird because the more he knew about what was coming, the less interesting stuff turned out to be when it actually happened. But this was for Shay.

He closed his eyes almost all the way, like he had when he was a kid and Elise made him watch horror movies. (Which he still didn't like but could, just for the record, watch now. And he hardly ever got nightmares). Luckily, it didn't take long before Arno found what it was he was supposed to be looking at.

He gave a little shout of victory and went running back to the living room.

"So you figured it out?" Ezio asked, following him more slowly.

"Yes!" He jabbed a finger at Ezio, then sent it sweeping around to where the others were standing. "I need to see all of you together."

And he could tell that not all of them really _got_ it, and even Arno couldn't help smiling at the way they all crowded together in front of him like they were posing for an awkward family picture. But that was okay, because when he let the visions in, when he opened his eyes and his mind to what the future had in store, the answers came flooding in. There were maybe ten, twenty seconds when Arno was bombarded with half a dozen futures from half a dozen people. And then they merged.

The cacophony of noise and images settled until Arno was looking at only one scene. He saw all of them, together, with Shay. And maybe Shay looked a little worse for the wear, but he was still smiling. Looking at that smile made Arno smile a little bit too, and then he realized that he probably looked like an idiot for smiling at something none of the others were seeing.

"Okay," he said, and the others relaxed a little. "I know where we're going."

"Did you see an address, or something?" Malik asked. "How exactly does this work?"

Arno shook his head. "It's just a feeling," he said.

Malik's twisted up expression told Arno exactly what Malik thought of the words 'just a feeling'. "But what if we go after whatever your vision was, and we find out that your feeling was wrong?"

"It won't," Arno said positively. "I don't know where he is, exactly. But I know how it feels to find him now. Sometimes that's what it means to be psychic, just… following a feeling until it matches the vision."

"Well then vision is kind of a misnomer, isn't it?" Malik continued. He was like a dog with a bone, worrying at the littlest details.

"It's a vision," he insisted.

Malik sighed. "And what exactly _is_ this feeling we're supposed to trust you to follow?"

"It's that feeling you have when you finally get to go home again."


	22. Chapter 22

A week later, Shay managed his first steps in ten years. Connor had gotten ahold of some kind of potion that was doing an amazing job of restoring muscles that had withered and decayed after a decade of rot. He felt like a kitten, wobbling while Connor stood at his side and made himself a support.

"I don't like this," Hope said from the other side of the room. She had her arms crossed over her chest and her mouth turned downward in a permanent expression of displeasure.

"Yes," Connor said. "Well, I don't honestly care what you like, since your other interests apparently include torturing ex-boyfriends and being a generally horrible person."

"It's not that simple," Hope said.

Shay grunted in pain as Connor shifted under him, and the younger man winced before returning to his original position. _Younger_. Sure. A couple days ago, Connor had mentioned he was twenty eight. Shay had been twenty seven before Hope started her experiments, and thanks to the fact that Shay hadn't fucking aged at all in the ten years since then, that technically made Shay the youngest in the room.

He felt like a man out of time, and he hated that more than maybe anything else. He could accept that Hope hated him. There were plenty of other universes where she'd felt just like that. He would (he _would_ , he was determined) get his body back after enough time. But his mind was older than his body, and that was something Shay wasn't sure he would ever get over.

"Ignore her," Connor said, apparently misinterpreting the look on Shay's face. "Focus on walking."

It was still good advice, even if Connor had it wrong. Shay took a deep breath, and focused on walking. One step at a time. It took him almost twenty minutes to cross the small hotel room, with Hope's sneers a constant litany of insults in the background. At first, they were discouraging, and Shay felt himself falter with every word Hope threw at him.

And then, when they were halfway across the room, something snapped. This wasn't fair. Nothing in his life right now was fair, and he was sick of it. He was sick of being treated like he had done something wrong. It wasn't like he was perfect, he'd made mistakes, but Hope-

"This is a waste of time," she sneered. "You're still my guinea pig, and the experiment is going to continue as soon as Connor gets bored and leaves."

"I'm not going to get bored," Connor said calmly. "Shay-"

But it was the last straw. Shay pushed away from Connor (and Connor must have let him, because Connor was a big guy and Shay could have been knocked over by a feather), and managed to get to Hope all on his own.

At the end of it, Shay fell into more than sat down on the empty chair next to Hope, and sat there panting for several seconds while Hope gave him a look like he was something dirty on the bottom of her shoe.

 _"Stop_ ," Shay said at last. "Just _stop_ , Hope, what is wrong with you? I never meant to hurt you, but I'm sorry that I did. I loved you Hope, and I would never have intentionally done what I did. But- but I got mad and accidentally threw a _single_ alternate universe at you. And you- you trapped me between a million of them for ten years. I don't know how you're justifying this to yourself, because I'm not sure there is a justification that makes this okay.

"You used to be someone I loved, and I really want that person to come back. I miss her. I-" He groaned and shut his eyes as his head started pounding. "I…" there were other worlds dancing behind his eyelids, and Shay forced himself to calm. Anger had always made it hard to keep these worlds inside.

"Your mistake is thinking this is personal," Hope said. "You're a freak of nature, Shay, not a real person. Experimenting on you isn't revenge for what you did to me, and it's not a way of hating you. It's just what you do to things that are useful."

Shay looked at her face, and couldn't tell if she really believed what she was saying. He hoped not. It hadn't been a lie when he said he missed the person Hope used to be. No matter what she did to him, there was some tiny, stupid part of him that couldn't stop loving her.

Connor was suddenly at Shay's side, pulling at his arm. "Come on," he said. "There is no version of this conversation that ends well."

Shay wanted to resist, he wanted to keep talking to Hope until she changed her mind. Only he didn't have an eternity to spend talking to her, and Connor was too strong anyway. "Fine," he said, trying to maintain his composure. At least a little of it. He tried not to look at Hope while he walked too slowly back to bed.

-/-

Arno barely remembered the drive, which might have been because he slept through a lot of it. He hadn't meant to, but something about the endlessly unchanging highway outside his window and the steady movement of the car lulled him into a kind of half sleep. He'd wake every hour or so, startled by a pothole or a lane change, and then drop off again when he realized they were still going the right way.

They weren't all travelling together, because (first of all) no one had a car with enough seats and (second of all) none of them thought that was a good idea. Three days in a car with all of them in a car together was a recipe for disaster, so for most of those three days Arno didn't see anyone besides Ezio, Leonardo, and Elise. They met up with the others occasionally, at rest stops or for roadside meals, and they did have phones so it wasn't like they were out of contact. But most of the time it was just the four of them and the silence of the road.

Ezio's car radio had been busted for as long as he'd had the car, so music was out, and there didn't seem to be anything to talk about. So no conversation, either. Whatever was going to happen would happen, and talking about it wouldn't change anything. But on the second night, when they were so close it almost hurt, Arno looked over at Elise and said, "What if something goes wrong?"

Ezio was outside getting gas, and Leonardo had gone with him to stretch his legs, so it was just the two of them alone in the car.

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, what do I mean?"

She grinned. "What do you mean, what do I mean, what-"

"Elise!" he groaned. "Please don't start that right now! I'm asking a serious question- what if something goes wrong?"

"Sorry. But what exactly are you afraid of?"

"I don't know. Everything. What if he's not there? What if he's hurt? What if we can't take him home?"

"First of all," Hope said. "He's there. Because your visions are never wrong and you saw him there. Second, if he's hurt, then we help him. It's been ten years and you haven't stopped thinking about him since he was taken away. I know you're going to break down every obstacle in your way. And third-" she smiled at him. "Whatever else happens, _we're taking him home."_

She was so absolutely certain that Arno caught himself nodding along with her. "Thanks."

"Of course." She leaned across the backseat and kissed him on the forehead. For about three seconds, even under the circumstances, he felt himself get excited. Then she went on, and said, "You're my best friend. What else was I supposed to do?"

And because they were sitting in the back of Ezio's car, getting closer and closer to Shay, Arno didn't say anything. He didn't say that he wanted to be more than best friends, or that he loved her- he just muttered a thank you, and then the other two were back in the car and they were driving again.

But they only made it another fifteen minutes before Arno jerked up in his seat and pointed at the next exit. "This is it!" he said, voice rising in sudden, disbelieving surprise. They'd been driving for so long that he'd almost stopped believing they would ever get there. But this was it.

Elise had already pulled out her phone, and started calling the other car. Arno was sitting behind Ezio, and he leaned forward to give more specific directions as they got closer. He had been dreading this part since they first got in the car, three days and half a country ago, but now it turned out to be a lot easier than he had imagined it would be. They finally stopped, in front of a hotel with a half filled parking lot and the name of some national chain on the outside wall.

"This is it," Arno said. He got out of the car and the other three followed more slowly. Arno leaned against the side of the car, studying the hotel so intently that he didn't even notice when Elise took his hand. "There," he added. "Um-" he tried to point, and in the process realized that Elise's hand was attached to his. "Sorry," he said, and pointed with the other hand. "Third floor, second window from the left. That's where he is."

Nobody asked him if he was sure. They all just believed him.

The other car pulled up, and when they were all in the parking lot, Arno realized that everyone was looking at him. Like he was supposed to know what to do next. He shrugged helplessly. The vision hadn't told him how, only where.

"I have this," Ezio said smoothly. He pulled something out of his pocket and flapped it vaguely in front of the rest of this. "Arno, come with me and try to look like you're older than seventeen. The rest of you, give it five minutes and then follow." He started walking toward the building with quick, long strides, and Arno hurried after him. "What is that?" he demanded, and Ezio passed him what looked like a very good forgery of an FBI badge.

"Why do you have this?" Arno demanded. He gaped at the ID, then handed it back.

"You're not the only one with visions," Ezio reminded him. "I didn't know where he was, but I knew we'd have to get in somehow."

"Thanks."

"Hey," Ezio said. "You got us all the way across the country. I'm just getting us to the third floor." He squeezed Arno's shoulder briefly. "You've done really well."

Then they were inside, and Arno stayed carefully behind Ezio as the man flashed his badge (and later, when things were calmer, Arno was going to have to ask where he'd managed to get that on such short notice. That thing was cool) and started asking questions.

"FBI," the woman behind the front desk said. "Seriously?"

"Listen," Ezio said, and there was a confidence in his voice that made it impossible not to go along with what he was saying. "We're following a lead on a very dangerous criminal, and believe they may be hiding in one of your rooms."

"What?"

He nodded. "Have you had any unusual visitors in the past few days? Anything at all?"

"Well there's, um-" she ran her hand through her hair, obviously upset at the thought of a criminal in the area. "There's a man on the second floor that keeps trying to smuggle his pet birds in-"

"I said dangerous criminal, ma'am," Ezio said. "Does a bird obsession sound like a dangerous crime to you?"

"No! No, I'm sorry, sir- well, there's room 302. They arrive over a week ago, said they were going to stay for one night, paid cash. The next morning, one of them came down and said they'd be staying longer, and didn't know when they'd be leaving."

"That sounds like exactly what we're looking for," Ezio said. "How many in the room?"

"Three. Two men and a woman."

"Perfect. We'll need a room key." The woman nodded, and while she hurried to get one made, Ezio added, "The rest of our team will be following in a few minutes, go ahead and tell them where we went."

"Yes sir." She handed him the card and nodded.

Ezio passed it off to Arno, then hesitated. "Hey," he said to the woman. "Do you mind if I ask your name?"

She blinked at him. "Sophia," she said. "But why…?"

"Because after we're done with this, I want to come back and ask you for your number."

" _Ezio!"_ Arno hissed. "Do you have to? Now?"

"Sorry, you're right." He smiled one last time at Sophia, and then the two of them left the lobby. As soon as they were out of sight and around the corner, Ezio gestured Arno toward the stairs. "Go get him," he said.

And Arno didn't need to be told twice. He took off running, faster than he had ever run before. In the stairwell, somewhere between the second and third floors, he almost flattened a woman headed downstairs, but he didn't stop. He didn't even slow down.

He'd picked the wrong set of stairs, apparently- this was the side of the building with the higher room numbers. The closest one when Arno got out of the stairwell was 348, and the one across the hall was 347. Arno ran all the way to room 310, then slowed down because his heart was pounding. 308, 306, 304. He was holding the keycard so tightly that the edges cut into his hand, and Arno forced himself to relax so he wouldn't break it.

He had been waiting for this moment for ten years, and part of him still didn't believe it could happen.

Well, it never would if he didn't open the door. Arno took a deep breath, and slid the keycard into the slot on the doorhandle. When it flashed green, he pushed the door open with his shoulder and almost fell inside.

There were two men and one woman inside, just like Sophia had said. The woman and one of the men were strangers, but then there was Shay, actually there, actually _real_. He looked up at Arno, and there was absolute disbelief in his eyes. "Arno?"

"Shay!"

By the time Arno had reached the bed, Shay had hauled himself into a standing position, obviously struggling. He looked like he might be about to fall over, so Arno grabbed his arm, thinking to steady him, and Shay responded by grabbing his back and pulling him into a hug. And it wasn't like Arno was trying to stop him. This was it. This was _the hug_ , from _the vision_ , the one he'd been having of Shay since the day they first met.

"What are you doing here?" Shay asked at last.

Arno smiled. "We came to take you home," he said.

-/-

Shay was having trouble believing he was really awake, just at the moment. He wanted to pinch himself to ruin the moment, but couldn't quite bring himself to ruin the moment. Of course, he should have known better than to worry about that, because as soon as he started to think _hey maybe this is real and maybe everything is going to be okay_ , Hope ruined things.

She'd been sitting in her usual chair when Arno came bursting in, and the expression on her face had been almost as good as seeing Arno in the first place. In the time since Arno's arrival, however, she had apparently recovered enough to return to her usual level of anger. Shay saw her coming toward them over Arno's shoulder, but then it was too late to do anything about it.

She grabbed Arno by the shoulder, forcing him away from Shay. Without the support, Shay fell backward onto the bed, helpless to do anything but watch- and for the first time, he really felt the pain of that, the way it trapped him inside a body that couldn't respond the way he wanted it to. When it was just him, it didn't matter so much. But when he had Arno to worry about and keep safe-

Except apparently, Arno had learned to take care of himself. He twisted around in her grip and shoved her hard so that she fell flat on her back on the floor. "Okay," Arno said. And he had grown into a skinny stick of a teenager ( _teenager,_ already) but when he bent down with his knee on top of Hope's chest, it was enough weight to keep her from getting up. "So I'm going to go ahead and assume you're Hope. I've heard a lot about you, and what you did to Shay. And maybe you thought it was okay, for some reason, but you were wrong, and I'm taking him home no matter what you think about that."

"You can't," Hope said. "He's my property."

"He's a human being!" Arno got up, his fists balled like he really wanted to hit her, and turned to look challengingly at Connor. "I-" he stopped with his finger pointing accusingly at the older man. "Don't actually know anything about you. Are you on her side?"

Connor smiled at him. "Absolutely not. Please go on, I'm enjoying this."

"You think this is funny?"

"Arno," Shay said. "Calm down." Arno looked back at him, and nodded.

"Sorry." He was calmer as he turned back to Hope. "In a few seconds, there's going to be a whole group of people coming to help get Shay out of here. And we're _going_ to take him, no matter what. So you can let this happen the easy way, or the hard way."

Hope got up, slowly, obviously trying to maintain the last of her dignity. "Fine," she spat. "I know when I've been beaten. So you can have him, for now. But I'm not done with him, and next time-"

"Yea," Arno said, rolling his eyes in a way that was all teenager. "Sure. Whatever."

Ezio arrived just after that, and maybe a minute later, everyone else was there as well. Shay didn't know what he'd expected when Arno said more people were coming, but it certainly hadn't been this. He'd sort of taken it as a given that Arno would be there for him, no matter what, but everyone else had been a surprise. This was more support than he could ever have expected.

They didn't let him walk out of the hotel, which was good because Shay's protests that he could have done so were mostly bluster. He was shaking where he sat, and he was shaking when everyone together carried him out of the room and down to the parking lot. He didn't stop until he was wedged into the back of a car with Arno and Elise. Arno still had his arm closed tight around Shay's elbow, like he was afraid one of them would drift away if he let go.

Leonardo smiled at Shay as he took shotgun, but didn't say anything. In fact, no one said anything at all until Ezio had gotten in and started the car. Shay was vaguely aware that the other car with the rest of his... his friends was pulling out behind them. But still nobody said anything.

It could have been an awkward silence, but it was… comfortable, instead. He didn't have to worry about what was going to happen next, because he trusted every person in the car absolutely. For the first time in ten years, he was safe.

It was dark out, probably almost midnight, when Shay realized Arno's hand had loosened around his arm. He looked down and saw that Arno had slumped sideways on top of him, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Shay slid his arm away from Arno's slack grip and moved it over the boy's shoulders so he could feel the gentle, steady rise and fall of his breathing. Asleep like this, Arno looked young. Younger. Not as young as Shay remembered. He kept half expecting to see the little boy Arno had been last time they saw each other, expecting to hear his voice all high and excited.

"He always does that," Elise whispered from Arno's other side. It was too dark to see her expression, but her voice sounded fond.

"Does what?"

"He falls asleep when we're in the car," Elise said. "On long drives. It's cute."

"Can I ask you something?" Shay asked, and Elise made a little humming noise of assent.

"Did he miss me?"

Ezio laughed from the front seat, a short bark of amusement before Elise shushed him and he got himself back under control. "Sorry," he said.

"So… is that a yes or a no?" Shay asked.

Elise didn't answer right away. Instead, she leaned down and pulled something out of the bag wedged between her feet. "Here," she said after a minute or so, straightening up and passing a thick pile of paper over to Shay. "You should read these when you have the chance."

"What are they?" Shay asked, squinting at the pile. In the intermittent beams of the streetlights, flashing over the car as they passed, he could just barely see that they were envelopes, most stuffed thick with papers.

"All the letters he's written to you since you, um- left," Elise said. "He doesn't know I took them before I left, but I thought that when we found you, you might want to see them."

"I do," Shay agreed. "Thank you, I'll read them when it gets light."

"And until then," Leonardo said from the front seat. "Try to sleep. You look like you need it."

Shay gave a vague grunt that might be misinterpreted as agreement. He did need sleep, his limbs were heavy and his eyes burned. But what he needed more was to just… sit there, in the dark, with Arno a reassuring weight pressing against his side. So that was what he did, until at last the long night ended, and the sun began to rise over the horizon.

-/-

Back in the hotel, Hope watched that same sunrise through eyes that were red from hours of crying. With Shay stolen away and Connor gone, joining the group of… of _bastards_ that had taken Shay, there was no one around to mock her for the tears, or for the pointless anger that had preceded them.

But then came sunrise, and with it a fresh determination. She'd had her cry, long overdue, and now it was time to plan her next step. There was no question in her mind that she was going to get him back. Shay was a danger to everyone he came in contact with, and more than that he didn't _deserve_ his freedom.

Hope pulled her phone off the wall charger and called William. So far, Shay's brief bursts of freedom had been possible because the rest of the world had no idea what he was capable of. He could easily pass as just another member of the public. If they knew- if they really understood, what he _could_ do and _had_ done- there would be nowhere safe in the whole world for Shay to hide.

When William finally answered, Hope smiled into the phone, and said, "I have a plan."


	23. Chapter 23

_Dear Shay,_

It was morning now, and with Arno still dead to the world against his side, Shay had decided it was as good a time as any to start reading the letters Elise had passed onto him. There were forty seven of them, all conscientiously dated in handwriting that got progressively neater as the dates got more recent. Shay had taken a few minutes to find the oldest, then put the rest in a neat stack on the seat next to him.

But he couldn't get past the first two words, scratched out in awkward crayon letters. Going by the date on the top of the letter (crossed out and rewritten twice because the number '7' had been written backwards both times), it had been written less than a month after Hope had taken Shay. It was like finding a little piece of the Arno he remembered, preserved forever in crayon and construction paper. And little dinosaur stickers, all along the bottom of the page, because apparently someone hadn't realized it was a bad idea to give a seven year old that many stickers.

He tried again to start reading. It was still hard, half because it reminded him of how much he'd missed, and half because… well, quite frankly Arno's writing skills had left a lot to be desired at this point. Shay had to keep making mental corrections to the spelling as he went just to get things to make sense.

 _Dear Shay,_

 _I miss you. Are you coming home soon? Elise's daddy said you had to go but I don't want you to._

 _I put-_

The next word was the letter d, followed by a thick layer of scribbles in three different colors, and then another sticker where Arno had given up trying to spell dinosaur, and put a sticker on instead).

 _-stickies on because Ezio said_ (another dinosaur sticker) _are tough! He said I have to be tough too, rawr! Until you get home again. Then I don't have to be tough anymore._

 _-Arno_

Shay put that letter aside, then switched to the next earliest one. And then the one after that. The early letters had been short but frequent, but gradually they got longer, and Arno started writing less often. Shay wished he had written every day, but realized that was a little unreasonable.

As it was, the letters had at least given Shay a kind of fast forward perspective of Arno growing up. It wasn't much, but it helped bridge the gap between the baby Shay had left behind and the teenager leaning against his arm.

Finally, he got to the last letter, the one written barely a month ago. The first half was a casual account of what had happened in the last year or so, but the last couple paragraphs made Shay pause.

 _It's been ten years, and I haven't even done anything to help you. I'm horrible, Shay. I miss you. What am I supposed to do?_

… _Damn. Sorry. I got depressing again. I'll just… stop now. But I'll try and write more. (I know, I know, I said that last year too). Happy birthday, Shay._

 _Love,_

 _Arno_

Arno wasn't horrible. Not at all, and Shay hated that he felt that way.

"Why are you reading that?"

Shay paused in his reading and looked over to see that Arno had woken up, and was squinting at the letter through eyes that were only halfway open.

"Well, it's addressed to me, isn't it?"

"Yea," Arno agreed. "But I never really thought you would read it."

Shay wasn't sure what to say to that. He still couldn't quite believe he was here either. "Is it something I shouldn't have read, then?"

"No," Arno said. "It's okay, it's just weird."

Shay sighed and looked down, shuffling through the envelopes until he got back to the one early crayon ones. "It is weird," he agreed. "I… for ten years, I saw hundreds of thousands of other universes, and you were in every single one of them."

"I was?"

He nodded. "But none of them were right."

He watched Arno's eyes drop down to the ten year old envelope in Shay's hand, and then he leaned away from Shay a little, shoulders hunching against the seat. "And I'm not right either, that's what you're saying."

Shay's denial was just a little bit too slow in coming, and the disappointment on his face was painfully obvious. Shay scrambled for the right words, trying to find some way to salvage this. "I'm the one that's not right, Arno." There was no hope of privacy in the car, not packed together the way they were, like sardines in their can, but Shay dropped his voice anyway. "I mean, look at me, Arno. I haven't _aged_ since I last saw you. I just can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that you have. I don't… know you, anymore…"

Arno looked down at his perfectly still hands resting in his lap, then sideways at Elise, and finally toward Ezio in the front. "Can we stop at the next rest stop?" he asked. "I have to pee."

-/-

He really did have to pee. Kadar often joked that Arno had a steel bladder, but they'd been driving all night and Arno was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable. But the more pressing issue was that Shay couldn't walk on his own, and Arno didn't want to have to talk to him right now.

Ezio had the decency to wait until Arno had finished his business and was washing his hands to ambush him. "You can't have expected this would be easy," he said.

"I didn't," Arno said. "I _don't_."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I don't know," Arno said. "Everything! He wants me the way I used to be, but I can't go back to being a _child_. And I want him to be like he was before, but he's all traumatized and I feel awful for thinking it, but he's not really Shay anymore, you know? He's not like I remember him, he's scared and he's walking on eggshells around me-"

"Whoa, Arno, hang on," Ezio interrupted. "Calm down."

Arno heaved a deep breath, steadying himself until he thought he was calm enough to have a conversation. Then he nodded and Ezio said, "Okay. Arno, I have some news for you."

"What?"

"Life isn't fair."

Arno made a face at him. "Ha ha ha."

"I'm serious, though. In a perfect world, Shay wouldn't have been taken away, he would have been here for you when you grew up. But it's not perfect, Shay's been gone for ten years, and Arno, he's _broken_. That woman took his body and his mind, and she ripped them apart."

Arno looked down at his shoes. "I know," he mumbled.

"Shay said hundreds of thousands of universes," Ezio went on. "So that's anywhere between one hundred thousand and a million, but let's go with a hundred thousand for now. He was with that woman for ten years. That's ten thousand universes a year, that's more than twenty five a day. For ten years, he couldn't even stay in the same world for an hour."

"That's not my fault though," Arno said. He was fully aware that he was whining, and some nasty little part of his mind wished that Shay was there to see him acting like a baby (because that was what he _wanted_ , wasn't it?).

"I didn't mean to imply that it was," Ezio said. "I'm sorry. I'm just asking you to… to try and imagine what it must be like to be shunted from one world to the next without a break, and then come home and find that nothing and _no one_ is the same."

"I can't imagine that, though," Arno said.

"Neither can I," Ezio agreed. "So it has to be really, really bad, right?"

"Okay," Arno agreed. "I'll try to do better." He looked back up, and continued earnestly. "I really do want him to be happy again, and feel safe with us. I just don't know what to do to help."

"Neither does anyone else," Ezio said. "But Shay needs you."

"But _I_ need _him_ ," Arno protested.

"Lucky you," Ezio said, giving Arno a little pat on the back before heading farther into the bathroom to take care of business. "He's waiting outside in the car."

Arno knew how to take a hint, and Ezio was in the middle of going to the bathroom. Clearly, the conversation had come to an end. He walked back outside with slow steps, and slid back into the backseat. Everyone was still inside, apart from Shay, who had dozed off. He was frowning, and Arno couldn't help wondering if that frown was his fault.

"Smile, Shay," he whispered. "Please smile."

-/-

 **[Alternate Universe #1]**

The worst part of coming back here was knowing it should have stopped.

But no. The _worst_ part of coming back here was that he was dreaming. He was upset, and confused, and his mind retreated back to old familiar patterns, into the mess of worlds that he was starting to think would never really go away again.

Except… really, the _absolute worst_ part was that he didn't really mind. There were a lot of bad universes hiding in his head, but one or two of them were good, and this was one Shay could remember coming back to over and over again while he was in Hope's captivity. This was one of the good worlds. In this world, there was no magic, no complicated insanity or grown up children. This was the world where he was married to Hope, and she loved him, the way she used to. And-

The sound of crying interrupted Shay's spiraling thoughts, and he forced himself to move. He followed the shrieking into the little bedroom at the back of the house, where Arno slept. The baby was on his back in the crib, screaming at the absolute top of his lungs with his face red and screwed up from the effort of his tears.

"Hey, baby," Shay said softly, leaning over to scoop Arno out of the crib. "Don't cry. Daddy's here…"

Arno quieted gradually in his arms, until his screaming had died down to little whimpers. He was still quivering a little, making little unhappy mewling noises like a sad kitten. Shay sat down in the chair Hope used to rock Arno to sleep, and just held the baby as close to his chest as possible. In that moment, he felt an uncontrollable wave of jealousy for the Shay that belonged in this world, who got to wake up in this house, with this family, every single day.

"Did you have a bad dream, baby?" he asked, when Arno finally seemed calm again. "So did I. I'm dreaming right now, actually. I don't know if it's a good dream or a bad dream, but… definitely a dream." He sighed, but went on talking because it wasn't like Arno was going to understand anything he said, anyway. "My Arno is bigger than you," he confided. "I don't know how to talk to him. I don't know him, he's like this whole other person. It's so selfish, you know? I just want him to be my little baby again, and he has his own life now, without me…"

Arno looked up at him and laughed- there was no happier sound in the whole world than that baby's laugh, and even with everything else crumbling around him, Shay smiled back at that laugh, and those bright blue eyes-

-/-

He jerked awake to a hand on his shoulder and two worried blue eyes inches away from his. Shay didn't think, he just lunged forward, catching the surprised Arno in a hug before the teenager could move. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but nothing happened. Arno didn't say anything, didn't move, he just stared at Shay.

"I heard once…" Shay hadn't let go yet. He wasn't ready yet. "That eyes never change. That's why babies look like they have such large eyes when they're born, they just haven't grown into them yet."

"What?"

"You will always, _always_ be my baby," Shay said.

"I'm not a baby, Shay," Arno said hesitantly. "I'm not even a kid. I'm seventeen."

"I didn't say you were _a_ baby," Shay corrected. "I said you're _my_ baby."

"But do you still want me?" Arno asked. "I thought… I'm not what you expected, anymore."

"You're still Arno. My Arno." He thought of the baby that wasn't his, that he'd held in arms that weren't his own, only moments ago. "And out of all the Arnos I met in all the worlds I've ever been to, you're the only one that really matters."

Arno crumpled against his chest and started to cry. It wasn't loud and screaming (not like a baby's crying). It was soft, breathless almost, like Arno was trying so hard to keep from breaking down completely. "I missed you so much, Shay," he mumbled. "I missed you every single day when you weren't here. Even years after you left, I kept… I kept looking for you, I kept thinking of things I wanted to tell you."

"Tell me now," Shay said. "I want to hear everything that happened to you while I was gone, I want to get to know you again."

"Sure," Arno said. But he squirmed his way out of Shay's arms and slid a little way down the seat. "But I thought you might need some help getting to the bathroom before we left."

"I…" and it was so humiliating, how much help he needed. If they hadn't driven for hours already, he would have said no. "Yes. I do."

Arno got back out of the car and walked around to the other side to help Shay out. "Does it hurt?" he asked, after the first few, slow steps.

"Yes," Shay grunted.

"Oh. Well, we can figure something out to help you when we get home. Physical therapy, I think that would help."

"Sure," Shay agreed gamely.

"Or potions. They can do anything with potions these days."

"I've had a few already," Shay agreed. "From Connor."

"Connor," Arno echoed. "Do we like Connor? Do we _trust_ him? I mean, one minute he's coming out of nowhere, and running off with Hope to help kidnap you, and now suddenly he's helping you? I don't know, it just seems fishy."

"He's fine, Arno," Shay said, amused at the overprotective note in Arno's voice. "I would probably already be back in Hope's experiments if Connor hadn't decided she was doing something wrong."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

They got to the bathroom, and Arno looked at Shay like he wasn't exactly sure how much help to offer. Shay took pity on him. "I can take it from here," he said, and while Arno did let go of him, he stayed by the door until Shay was ready to leave, and then he was right back at Shay's side. Shay might have called it hovering, except that he actually did need the support. Even the brief walk from the car to the building had exhausted him.

"What were you dreaming about?" Arno asked, halfway through the slow shuffle back to the car.

"What?"

"Before I woke you up," Arno said.

"Nothing," Shay said. "I was just sleeping."

"You were making faces," Arno said. "What was the dream?"

Shay shrugged. They had enough problems already without adding more to them. Arno didn't need to know that he was visiting other worlds in his sleep now. "I don't remember," he said lightly.

"But-"

"What kind of faces?"

Arno hesitated over the thought of letting it go, and Shay nudged him a little with his elbow. "Hey-" Arno grinned a little at him, and responded with an expression of such exaggerated emotion that Shay had no idea what it was supposed to be. But Arno had screwed his face up into such a comical look that Shay couldn't keep himself from laughing.

He was still smiling when they got back into the car.

-/-

Two days later, they were home. Just like that. Except Shay didn't actually have a home anymore. His apartment wasn't his anymore- well, that was what happened to people that didn't pay rent for a decade or so.

"We'll find you somewhere to stay," Ezio reassured him when he caught onto what Shay was worried about.

Shay glanced sideways at Arno, who was asleep again, and caught Elise shaking her head. "Unfortunately, we didn't really tell my dad we were leaving before taking off, and bringing you home is not a good way to get ungrounded."

"You didn't tell him?"

She shook her head. "I called the first time we stopped to tell him we were okay. He was kind of pissed, and told us to come home."

"Wait a second," Leonardo interrupted. "You told us he was alright with this."

"Well, yea," Elise agreed. "Otherwise you might have turned around."

Ezio stopped the car, and Shay glanced outside to see a nice looking house that he assumed was where Elise and Arno lived. "This is it?" he asked.

"This is it," Elise agreed. She unbuckled and shook Arno by the shoulder until he grumbled a complaint and opened his eyes. "Come on sleeping beauty," she said. "We're home."

He looked between Elise and Shay. "Are you coming?" he asked.

"It's not my house," Shay said.

"But-"

"Oh, shit," Elise muttered. "Dad's coming." She put her hand on Arno's chest, pushing him back into the seat when he tried to follow her. "You stay here, okay? Let me get shouted at first."

"But- you told me he was okay with us leaving."

"I lied," Elise said calmly, and when she walked away from the car her back was straight and proud. Arno looked after her in confusion.

"I don't understand her sometimes," he whispered to Shay.

There was no reason to whisper, but then again there was no reason for all the rest of them to go silent and watch, either. Elise walked up to her dad, posture unapologetic, and started what looked like a long explanation. Shay couldn't hear a word of it, and Elise's father had a good poker face. Every once in a while, he would ask a question, and Elise would give an answer punctuated with gestures back toward the car.

Eventually, he shook his head and made a sharp cutting motion with one arm. Shay could hear Elise shouting after him as he strode toward the car, but he ignored his daughter. Shay did his best to not look like he could be knocked over with a feather as it became obvious that the man was headed for his door. He had met Francois de la Serre only half a dozen times, and had never been entirely sure what the man thought of him.

Elise was still talking loudly when her father opened the door, and Arno immediately joined in with his own protests. Shay tried to control his wince as he was suddenly assaulted on all sides by concentrated teenage shouting, and Francois gave a long suffering sigh. He held up a hand and said, "Stop."

Elise and Arno fell silent at the exact same time.

"I heard you were dead, Cormac," Francois said.

"Well, you heard wrong."

"Good," Francois said. "I don't want a dead man staying in my house."

"What! Really?" Arno leaned around Shay to get a better look. "Shay's staying?"

"Given the circumstances, it seems the best choice," Francois said.

"Thank you!"

"Dad!" Elise smiled at him. "You let me think you were mad!"

"I'm absolutely furious that the two of you left without telling me," Francois said. "And you're both grounded, at the very least, for the foreseeable future."

"But… Shay's still coming, right?" Arno asked.

"As long as he wants to," Francois confirmed.

"Of course."

"Then that's okay."


	24. Chapter 24

**[Alternate Universe #44,233]**

Shay had done a lot of things in his life. In his millions of lives, technically speaking. But never, until now, had he been on death row at a woman's prison.

At least he could comfort himself with the knowledge that he wasn't the one _in_ the women's prison. That would have been a very strange universe indeed. He sighed and gave into the memories of this universe that were trying to get into his head. If he had to be here, he might as well know what he was doing. No point in acting like the clueless visitor he was and making life difficult for the Shay that belonged here when things got back to normal.

Okay... so in this world, he was a lawyer. That explained the prison, at least. He was here to visit a client, and tell her that her latest appeal had been denied. Shay made a face and wondered what had made _any_ version of him decide this would be a good career.

"You can go ahead inside now." The guard that had escorted him this far nodded to the door of the visiting room. "The prisoner is waiting for you."

"Thank you," Shay said, because it didn't hurt to be polite. He picked up his case and walked into the room. It was slightly grimy, and all the furniture inside had been bolted to the floor. Shay, whose only experience with prisons came from cop shows on television, had expected something else. He didn't know _exactly_ what else, but something. This room was just sad- the feeling coated every surface like something solid, it filled the air so Shay felt it when he breathed it in. He had come here today to tell a woman waiting to die that yet another stay of execution had been denied, but he only had to walk into this room to realize that she already knew. It was impossible to imagine anyone receiving good news here.

The prisoner was hunched over in her seat. Her wrists were chained together, and those chains were attached to both the table and her ankles. It seemed unnecessary. She didn't look like she had the willpower in her to run. When Shay walked in, she didn't even look up at him. Her long, dirty hair hung low across her face, and she rubbed her wrists together in a distracted way. Shay could tell by the red marks already there that this was an old habit.

He sat down.

"I'm innocent," the woman said. Her voice was a rough crack in her throat.

"Um…" Maybe some other Shay was used to this. He wasn't. He didn't know how to deal with it. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't _do_ anything."

And then she looked up at him, and it was Hope. Shay's mouth fell open, and he stared. He had seen literally hundreds of thousands of versions of this woman before, but there was something about this one, dirty and broken as she was, that looked familiar in a way none of the others did. There was something in the eyes, maybe, in her face, in the way she looked at him.

"Shay!" She tried to stand, but the chains criss crossing her body prevented it, and she fell back down so hard that Shay heard a thump. "Shay, _God_ \- it's you, it's really you!" She could just barely reach her face, and her hands scrubbed tears from her face.

"I don't know-"

"You _do_ know me!" Hope shouted. "Shay, look at me! You know _me_!"

But he didn't look, he couldn't make himself look, and then he was awake.

-/-

Arno woke up on the floor of his bedroom, because Shay was in his bed.

He smiled and got up to start getting ready for school, almost bouncing as he walked. He was headed down for breakfast when he heard Shay laugh.

"What?" Arno asked.

"You look like a little cartoon character," Shay said. "Hopping around."

"I'm just happy."

"Yes," Shay said. "I can tell."

"You don't look happy, though," Arno said. Shay had turned onto his side to watch him, but hadn't otherwise moved. "You look uncomfortable. And grumpy."

"I'm just uncomfortable," Shay said. His smile looked really forced, and Arno pulled his desk chair across the room until it was in front of the bed.

"Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure." Shay tried to prop himself up on his elbow, but the arm shook too much to support him and he fell back onto the mattress. Arno politely pretended not to hear his muttered curse.

"It's just… I thought you might be having another bad dream."

"I don't have bad dreams," Shay said. "I don't even remember them."

"You don't have to lie to make me feel better," Arno insisted. "I can handle things. I can help you!"

But Shay shook his head. "I feel fine. I promise. And I'll tell you if that changes, okay?"

"But-"

"So I was thinking you're probably right about physical therapy," Shay interrupted. "And the sooner the better. I want to be able to walk again."

"Sure." He bit his lip, debating whether to pursue the nightmare thing. Then he decided that no, he probably shouldn't. Shay _said_ he would tell him if something was wrong. That would have to be good enough. "I looked up a few places online, and I found some places that seem like they could really help you."

"That's great."

"Of course, I have to get permission to take you there," Arno added. "Because of the whole grounded thing."

"Are you in a lot of trouble because of me?" Shay asked.

"Not as much as Elise," Arno said. "She sort of fell on her sword for me."

"Well that was nice of her."

"Yea…" Arno smiled down at his hands, aware that his face was turning red. "She's really great." While staring at his hands, he happened to catch sight of his watch. "Oh!"

"What's wrong?"

"I'm running late," Shay said, scrambling around the room for his school things. "I cannot be late today, I already missed a whole week of school-"

"I'll be here when you get back," Shay said, and Arno beamed because yea, he would. He wasn't going to lose Shay again.

Downstairs, Elise and her father were sitting across from one another at the kitchen table, staring at a thick envelope set between them. Arno froze in his tracks, because there was no coffee within arms' reach of Elise, but she looked wide awake. That only happened when things were really bad.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"We can fix this, Arno," Francois said, which was not what Arno wanted to hear. "It's not as bad as it's going to sound."

"What?" Arno looked across at Elise, but she wouldn't look at him. "Tell me!"

"Hope is suing us," Elise said.

"For what?" He laughed like there was something funny in all this. "She's the bad guy here! She took Shay, she tortured him! What could she possibly be suing us for?"

"Theft," Francois said. He picked up the envelope from the table, and walked it over to Arno. "She contends that the original experiment that put those universes in Shay's head is her intellectual property. She says that there cannot possibly be enough room in any one person for a million universes _and_ a human mind. Her argument is therefore that Shay is not human, that he is an object and she therefore did nothing wrong, and that you stole her property when you took Shay home."

"But that's _ridiculous_ ," Arno said. "He's a person, not a thing, anyone could see that!"

"There's precedent," Francois said gently. "When the government experimented with adding magic to bombs during the Second World War, a thousand people had their brains essentially melted. It was ruled that there was nothing human left in their minds, and their bodies donated to be studied while they were still alive. Records from that time indicate some of them were less disturbed than Shay when they were legally declared inhuman."

"So… she could really do this?"

"Not if we stop her," Elise said.

"If?" He looked down at the envelope. His could barely hear his own voice. "If..?" He dropped his backpack and went running back upstairs. "I'm not going to school!" he shouted over his shoulder. "I'm not leaving him!"

-/-

News of Shay's impending loss of personhood spread to all the relevant people before the end of the day. Elise called Kadar, who was already at school, and almost got detention for having his phone out during class. He waited for the next passing period before calling Desmond, who immediately told Altair and Malik. Both of them were staying with him as long as they were in the city, which made things easy.

Desmond also called Ezio, who told Leonardo. Altair called Liam, who was staying in a hotel room with Connor, because there was literally no room anywhere else. By 5:00, everyone knew.

 _Connor_ knew. He just didn't know what to do.

But he happened to know someone that might. So he told Liam he was going out, and went for a walk. It had been years since he'd last seen this city, but it was where he'd grown up. He still remembered the streets. The way home.

Connor didn't head for the house where he'd spent most of his childhood. That wasn't home. The house was just the place where his bed had been. It was somewhere he'd visited occasionally, and stored his stuff. That didn't make it his home. No, home was the tower where his father had worked for as long as Connor could remember. That was where he went.

It was 6:30 by the time he got there, and he knew his father would still be there. Connor went to the front desk, and was about to ask for his father, when he saw the man coming down the stairs.

"Dad."

"Connor."

Connor took a brief moment of pride in the look of complete shock on his father's face. Neither of them were good with their emotions, and this surprise was the most Connor could ever remember seeing on his father. He almost got a hug from Haytham when his father got downstairs, but luckily that didn't actually happen. They weren't big huggers either, so Connor was faintly relieved when Haytham dropped his arms and nodded at him instead.

"Well," Connor said. "I came home."

"And I'm glad," Haytham said. "I never liked you being far away." He sighed and shook his head. "But you never listen to me, so I have to ask- why are you here?"

"I need help," Connor said. "That friend I called you about, he's in even more trouble than I thought. And he's in town, so I thought of you."

"Well, I'm happy to help," Haytham said. "Come upstairs, so we can talk in private."

Connor nodded, and walked behind his father all the way to the top of the tower, until they got to the top floor and his father's office. When they were settled on opposite sides of the desk, Haytham folded his hands together on the table and looked at Connor. "Alright," he said. "Tell me about your friend. Start with a name."

"Shay Cormac."

For the second time in less than ten minutes, Connor saw absolute surprise on his father's face.

"Oh," Connor said. "You know him."

"I do," Haytham said. "Or I did." He stood and walked to the window behind his desk, where he stood looking out with his feet spread apart and his hands behind his back. He would have looked uninterested, maybe angry, to anyone else. But Connor recognized that stiffness as a sign that he was trying to keep his emotions from getting the best of him.

"Tell me about him," Connor said. "How did you meet?"

"He worked here," Haytham said. "About ten years ago. He… ah."

"What?"

"I imagine his current problem is related somehow to the universes in his head?"

"You know about those?" Connor demanded.

"He told me, back when he still worked here," Haytham said. He sighed, and said offhandedly, "I liked him."

"A lot of people still do," Connor said. "Including me, I think."

"He had a son," Haytham said. "Adopted, I think. It's been a while, I don't remember the whole story. I know it was complicated, though."

"Arno's not his son," Connor said. "Not even adopted."

"Well, I'm not sure anyone told either of them that," Haytham said. "The boy was always here while Shay was working. He would come with a backpack as big as he was and play with toys under Shay's desk."

"Most people would have thought that was annoying," Connor said pointedly.

"Well, when you were that age you were far more likely to start climbing the walls here than you were to play quietly," Haytham said.

Connor shrugged. It was true. "Arno's not so quiet anymore, though," he said. "I met him recently. When he came to rescue Shay. He'd fight his way through an army to keep Shay safe. And that's… well, that's good. Shay's going to need all the help he can get."

"Which brings us back to the original problem," Haytham said. "What's wrong with him?"

"Have you ever heard of a woman called Hope Jensen?"

"She works at Davenport," Haytham said. "She used to be very good, but I haven't heard of her contributing any new research in over a decade."

"That's because she's been dissecting Shay's mind," Connor said. "Sending him to alternate universes for ten years to see what happens. And now that Shay is finally away from her, she's suing to have him legally stripped of his humanity, and returned to her care."

Haytham turned around to look at Connor. "That woman is insane," he said flatly. "I know Shay. He is as human as you or I, and considerably more human than she is."

"I know," Connor said. "So… will you help?"

Haytham nodded. "In any way I can."

-/-

Arno hadn't left his room all day, and he hadn't told Shay what was wrong, either. That was worrisome. But at night, when Arno sat up with his back against the bed like he was guarding Shay from something, that was when Shay decided that enough was enough.

"Arno," he said. "Something's wrong."

"No."

"You didn't go to school today."

"I… didn't feel well."

Shay leaned over to put his hand on Arno's shoulder. "Please don't lie to me."

"I'm not-" Arno looked over his shoulder at Shay. "I guess I am."

Shay waited patiently, but there was no forthcoming explanation. "Arno," he said, as firmly as possible. "Tell me."

"But you're not going to like it."

"I think I'll like it more than you lying to me."

"Hope wants you back," Arno said.

"Well, we knew she wouldn't give up," Shay said softly, after a long, sad silence.

"She's suing," Arno said. "And if she wins, everything she's already done to you will be legal. And worse things, too. It's not _fair_ , Shay. It's all supposed to be over now, you know? The good guys won, you came home. If this were a movie, it-" he paused, considering. "Well, it wouldn't be a very good movie. But my point is, they'd be playing some cheesy song and rolling the credits by now."

"Or maybe," Shay said. "This is just the final act. When the heroes think they've won, and the bad guys come back with one final plan to ruin everything. We just have to stay strong until we beat this one last problem."

"Except there's no one last problem in real life," Arno said. "Just old ones and new ones. If we beat Hope in court, she'll do something else, or some new problem will come up."

"Yep."

Arno shot him a sideways look, almost accusing. "You don't sound upset about that."

"That's just the way the world works. You can get upset about it, or you can deal with each problem as it comes up."

"I'm tired," Arno said softly. "I don't want to."

"I know." He nudged at the back of Arno's head. "But hey, I bet you feel better because you told me."

"Well- I do," Arno admitted. "Yea. I'm sorry for not saying it sooner, I just didn't want to worry you."

"Don't lie," Shay said. "Lying worries me more."

Arno nodded. "And it's not fair. Because you never lied to me." He stood up and pointed his thumb at the door. "I'm going to shower before bed. Will you be okay until I get back?"

"I'll be fine," Shay assured him. "I'm tired. I think I might just try and sleep."

"Okay." Arno grinned at him. "And try not to have any more dreams, alright? They kind of freak me out."

"I'll do my best," Shay said. And he tried not to think about how he was still lying to Arno- about how his dreams weren't dreams, they were other worlds. But he was the adult in this situation, and if he wanted to protect Arno from worrying about something none of them could do anything about- that was his prerogative. And if he wanted to lie, and tell Arno that he wasn't worried, and everything was normal… that was just to make him feel better.

Shay could hear Arno talking to Elise down the hall. They were too far away for him to make out their actual words, but he could tell by her tone that Elise was teasing Arno, and he could hear him laughing in response.

Downstairs, a dull drone of canned conversation told Shay that Francois must be watching something on television. A dog barked outside in a neighbor's yard, and a woman shouted at it to be quiet. It all sounded very normal. Only Shay wasn't normal. Didn't feel normal. Didn't fit.

-/-

Malik hadn't asked yet, but this was a conversation that needed to happen. After dinner, he cornered Kadar and went looking for answers.

"Um…" Kadar had his head in the freezer looking for food, and he looked over at his brother. "I was going to share the ice cream."

"What?"

"Oh." Kadar pulled his head out and shut the freezer. "That look was about something else, I guess."

"Yea," Malik agreed. "Sit down, Kadar, I have questions."

"Am I in trouble?" Kadar asked.

"No! No. I just want to ask questions. About Shay."

Kadar shrugged. "You probably know more about him. I haven't even talked to him since I was seven, way back before he left. I don't really get any of this alternate universe stuff."

"Well, I pretty much have a handle on all that," Malik reassured him. "I want to know what he's like. Because… I don't understand. I mean, do you realize how much time and money was just spent on getting him back? And apart from Liam, I don't think anyone knew him for longer than a couple years. How does a man inspire that kind of loyalty?"

"I don't know," Kadar said. He held up a finger in a wait one second sign, and went back to the freezer. "This is an ice cream conversation."

"Everything is an ice cream conversation with you," Malik muttered. But when Kadar came back with two bowls of peanut butter ice cream, Malik didn't exactly protest.

"Duh. Ice cream is better than everything. But anyway, you were asking about Shay."

Malik nodded, slow and thoughtful. "Why are we doing all this?" he asked. "Shay is just a man. He's had some shitty luck, but so have lots of people. We don't get involved in all their lives."

"Because… I don't know about anyone else, but it just seems like the right thing to do." Kadar's words came slowly, which meant he was really thinking about them instead of blurting out the first thing that came into his mind. "It's a sad world, Malik, you know? People don't care about each other the way they should. I mean… if mom and dad had taken care of us the way parents are supposed to, our lives would have been so much easier."

"I don't think I get your point."

"Shay and Arno shouldn't have met," Kadar said. "And if they had to meet, they should have hated each other on sight. I mean-" He laughed around his spoonful of ice cream. "Arno knew going in that Shay was going to kill his dad, and instead of hating him, Arno latched on and wouldn't let go. And Shay, he could have told Arno to go away and stop bothering him, but he welcomed him instead. They really loved each other, Malik. Not romantic love, obviously, that'd be gross. They're just better when they're around one another, they support one another unconditionally, they're not as happy when they're apart.

"I wish more people were able to just love like that, you know? To care about strangers like that. I think that when people love each other, whether that's romantic, or friends, or family, that makes the whole world better. And when those people are taken away from each other, the world is worse. I just want to believe that kind of accidental, crazy, selfless affection for another person can exist."

"That's a very sentimental way of looking at the world," Malik said.

"I _like_ sentiment," Kadar said. "No shame!" And then he smiled and went quiet, giving Malik the time he needed to think. Kadar's explanation was a strange one, and Malik wasn't sure he could look at the world through the rosy goggles his brother preferred. But... well, it would be nice if he were right. It would be nice to believe in something good in the world.

Neither of them said anything until the ice cream was gone, but as Kadar gathered the used bowls and spoons to put them in the sink, he hesitated in front of his brother. "Did I answer your question?" he asked. "I know you don't know Shay the way the rest of us do, but do you understand why we're trying so hard to get him home?"

"I think I'm starting to," Malik said slowly. "They represent something bigger. Something worth fighting for."

"That's a good way of putting it," Kadar said. "Besides, I know Arno would fight with me to get you back if I wasn't allowed to see you anymore. We're friends."

Malik nodded and mumbled something about heading to bed. He was halfway out the door when he stopped and looked back. "You would fight for me?" he asked.

"Duh," Kadar scoffed. "Stupid."

And it was impulse that made Malik walk back to his brother and give him a tight hug. "I love you."

"Love you too," Kadar said. He wiggled away from Malik and stuck out his tongue. "And don't worry, I won't tell anyone you said that."


	25. Chapter 25

**[Alternate Universe #44,233]**

Two weeks later, Shay was still visiting the same universe in his dream, over and over again. And oh, there were occasional variations, a night here and there when he visited other worlds, but mostly, he kept coming back to that one universe.

The one where Shay was a lawyer, and Hope was going to be executed soon.

It wasn't a terrible world, especially since Shay hadn't had to go back to that prison since his first uncomfortable confrontation with Hope. In this world, he was a decent man, a successful lawyer that still managed to devote a decent chunk of his time to pro bono work. Like Hope's case.

And what a case it was.

Shay had done his research, because something about Hope in that prison unnerved him (of course, something about it also made him feel _extremely satisfied_ because she'd experimented on him for ten years, in another world). Her eyes… something about her eyes had gotten through to Shay. And he'd done his homework.

She'd been a surgeon in this world. Highly skilled, motivated, at the top of her field. Superficially, she had been a thoroughly decent person. Except that at night, she'd gone around kidnapping people, experimenting on their bodies, testing the absolute limits of what the human body could withstand, until days or weeks later, they died. Eventually she'd been caught, and when the police managed to get a confession out of her, Hope said she was trying to help people. She'd called it _important medical research_.

The police had called her a serial killer, and the jury at her trial had called her guilty of all charges, and… well, and then she had been sentenced to death.

"Why am I defending this woman?" Shay asked one day. It was half past nine at night, and he was alone in the office, Hope's entire file spread out across the table in front of him. The last thing he expected was an answer, but one came anyway.

"Because everyone deserves a fair trial."

"Ar- Dorian." Shay nodded at Arno where he stood in the doorway. He was a junior partner at the firm in this world, recently graduated from law school and ready to prove himself. The Shay of this world had started to take Arno under his wing a little, but they weren't exactly close yet. Not even on first name terms, which Shay thought was funny.

"Sir?" Arno asked, and Shay waved him into the room.

"Sit down," he said, reaching for the box of takeout on the table next to him. "Have some… whatever this is. You look hungry."

"Starved," Arno admitted. "I haven't had time to eat today."

Shay let him have silence for a few minutes while he wolfed the food down, as quickly as he could without being obviously rude. Then he broke the silence. "What did you mean about a fair trial?" he asked. "She's a mass murderer."

"Well then, a fair trial would find her guilty, I guess," Arno admitted. "But she still deserves to have it."

"And she did," Shay pointed out. "Fifteen years ago. Why am I still working on appeals for her?"

"Why are you asking me?" Arno asked.

"Um- pop quiz."

"Well I guess…" He put down the takeout and fiddled with the plastic fork. "Dying is a harsh punishment. It's better to be absolutely sure she's guilty before it's too late."

"I guess," Shay said quietly, and Arno followed his gaze down to the papers all over the desk.

"Oh," he said. "The Jensen case."

"Yea. Do you know it?"

"Not really," Arno said. "But I get stuck in the mailroom a lot, because… well, you know. New guy." He grinned awkwardly. "And you've been getting a lot of letters from a Jensen. All mailed from the womens' prison. Do you… check your mailbox, or…?"

"Show me," Shay said, and it took them less than five minutes to get down to the mailroom, pick up the letters Arno was talking about, and get back to the office.

"Okay," Arno said. "I'm starting to get really confused now. It's one thing to defend this woman, it's another thing to obsess over her."

"I'm not obsessed," Shay said, opening the first envelope. "I just want to know why she's writing to me."

"She's going to be executed in May," Arno pointed out. "And everyone on the planet that's ever heard of her knows she's a scumbag. You're her lawyer, you're pretty much the only person in the world that might even possibly fight for her. It's just self-preservation, it's not that difficult."

Shay shrugged and started opening the letters Hope had sent him. Most of them were short, a few resorted to outright begging, and every single one of them asked him to please come back.

"She says she has something to tell me," Shay said.

"I bet you anything it's something like 'I'm innocent, please don't kill me.'" Arno grinned, but Shay didn't smile back. After about thirty seconds, Arno's smile dropped and he shook his head. "You're not actually going to talk to her, are you? You've done what you can, she's running out of options for appeals, and honestly- I mean, yay justice system and all that, but she doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. She _admitted_ to killing those people. She was proud of it."

"I'm going," Shay insisted.

"Fine," Arno sighed. "You're the boss."

-/-

With Hope suing to get Shay's humanity revoked, there was no question of anyone going back to the homestead. And so maybe it wasn't the best circumstances, but Desmond couldn't help feeling ecstatic at the idea of finally getting his brother back full time.

But with Altair came Malik, and Desmond wasn't entirely sure he liked the kid. Still, he was Kadar's brother, and he seemed… responsible. That was the most positive thing Desmond could say about Malik, from what he knew so far.

But the one thing he knew for sure was that if Altair and Malik were both going to be moving in, they needed a bigger place. The apartment was big enough for Desmond and Kadar together, big enough even for temporary guests. They needed something bigger if this was going to be more permanent.

"How are we going to pay for this?" Malik complained. They were all four crammed into Desmond's small car, headed out for some showings. Desmond glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw that Malik's frown was focused specifically on him. "You're the only one with a job, and you tend bar. That's not exactly going to pay for a place big enough for the rest of us."

"I'm getting a job," Altair said suddenly, and both Desmond and Malik looked at him in absolute surprise. Desmond hadn't known anything about this, and Altair usually had a difficult time keeping secrets from him.

Malik seemed to be surprised for a different reason. "How are you getting a job?" he asked. "You've worked in the same place your entire life, you went straight to the research tower at the homestead after graduating, you don't know anything about applying or interviewing or- how can you possibly have a job already?"

"I…" Altair looked down at his hands. "Well, I've been talking to Connor, and met his father a few days ago. We started talking, and he… offered me a job."

"Oh," Malik said.

 _"What's wrong?"_ Desmond asked, mentally so the teenagers in the back wouldn't hear. _"You don't sound happy."_

 _"Malik's right,"_ Altair answered. _"I've been at the homestead my whole life. I feel like I'm betraying everyone there by going somewhere else."_

 _"You're not,"_ Desmond insisted. _"Things are complicated. And maybe it's a good thing that you're leaving home. Trust me, I learned more my first month away from the homestead than I did my whole life before that point."_

 _"I guess."_ And even inside Desmond's head, Altair's voice sounded a little happier now. _"But you're wrong about leaving home."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Well, you're here. I'm home."_

"Is this going to have to happen a lot?" Malik asked.

"What?" Altair glanced back at him.

"The whole talking about things in your heads so we can't hear it," Malik said.

"It's kind of weird when you're right next to each other," Kadar agreed.

"Is not," Desmond scoffed.

"Is too!"

Desmond grinned sideways at Altair and took one hand off the steering wheel to put a finger on his lips in a shh gesture.

After maybe fifteen seconds of this, Malik blurted, "You're doing it again!"

Altair started laughing first, and it had been so long since Desmond heard his brother just start _laughing_ like that, he didn't even care that both teenagers were giving them death glares from the backseat.

"This is going to get old fast," Kadar complained. "Hey, Malik, think we can find something to annoy them with?"

"Hey look," Desmond said quickly, before they had time to start brainstorming. "This is the first place we're supposed to be looking at." He parked and started gesturing everyone out of the car.

-/-

Arno felt weirdly like a proud parent when he saw Shay at physical therapy. It had only been two weeks, but Shay was already making strides (pun fully intended) toward full recovery. He was walking under his own power, although not for long and not for far, but that was still a lot of progress. Especially compared to how helpless he had been at the beginning. The potions were helping too, but Arno was really happy with how the physical therapy was going.

"You know you don't have to sit out here and wait for me," Shay said one day at the end of his session. He was limping and shuffling, but his back was straight as he walked under his own power into the physical therapist's waiting room.

"How else am I going to drive you home?" Arno asked. He stood up as well, spinning the keys around on his finger. "You ready to go?"

"Sure," Shay said. "But how about we go somewhere else first?"

"Really?" He almost dropped the keys in surprise. "Are you sure?"

Shay shrugged. "Well, why not?"

"You haven't gone anywhere but here since we got you back," Arno said.

"Well, it's embarrassing to be carried around all the time," Shay said cheerfully. "But I'm feeling pretty good right now. I think I can manage."

"Sure!" Arno took Shay's elbow, less with the intent to help than with a sudden desire to move quickly. "Where do you want to go? I think we should still probably take it easy. Maybe a movie, or some food, or something? But if that's not what you had in mind, we can do something else, I don't care." He paused for breath. "What do you want to do, Shay- Shay! Don't laugh at me!"

"I'm laughing with you," Shay assured him.

"Sure," Arno scoffed. "Except that I'm not laughing."

"Then lighten up," Shay said. "We're going to have a good afternoon."

Arno immediately set his face into a stubborn frown, and Shay whacked him gently around the back of the head. Arno jerked forward a little and laughed. "Hey!" But it was good to see Shay joking around like this. He'd seemed so worried ever since coming home, and Arno was still convinced Shay was lying about not having bad dreams. It was a relief to hear him suggest that they go do something fun. "So what exactly did you want to do?"

"Well," Shay said thoughtfully. "I want to know more about you still. I was thinking we could just drive around and talk. "

Arno shook his head and laughed. "I'm not interesting. _You're_ interesting, why don't we talk about you?"

"I haven't done anything but lie around for ten years," Shay said. "I don't have anything to say."

"You could talk about what your life was like before we met," Arno said. "I know you were at Davenport when you were at school, and I know you were friends with Liam. But I don't really know that much about you. Or we could… that is- I mean, I've just been wondering what it was like."

"The other worlds?" Shay sighed. "Are you sure you want to hear about them?" When Arno nodded, more hesitantly than he'd planned, Shay sighed and started limping out of the building. "Let's get in the car, then," he said. "If we're going to talk about this, we should at least do it in private."

And they didn't say anything else until they had walked (together) to the car and gotten inside. Arno was still new enough to driving to be nervous, but Shay looked nervous too. Maybe he didn't want to talk, or maybe he just didn't know if Arno was any good at driving. Arno tried to hide his nerves in case that was it.

"So where am I going?" Arno asked.

"Anywhere you want," Shay said. "Pick a direction, and just drive. We both have phones, we can find our way home no matter how far we go. And hey, you're psychic."

"True," Arno said. He hit the brakes and came to a gentle stop in front of a stop sign at the mouth of a T-intersection. For a very long time, he hesitated, like it mattered at all, then went left.

"The first world I went to," Shay said after several more turns. "You were my son. Mine and Hope's."

"Oh." Arno was suddenly glad of the road in front of him as a distraction. He wasn't sure how to feel about that. "How does that work?" he asked. "I mean, genetics. If I had different parents, I wouldn't be me."

"But you were," Shay said. "I know it shouldn't have happened, but then there you were…" Arno risked a glance sideways, and saw Shay staring out the front window. His eyes were distant, his arms bent in front of his chest like he was cradling something. Or someone. "I liked that world."

"Even though it wasn't real?"

"It felt real," Shay said. "I had that universe's memories in my head. I couldn't remember anything else." He shifted slightly, letting his hands drop. "And it _was_ real."

"No," Arno said. There was a funny, twisted up feeling in his gut. Like he was jealous of that other baby Arno. Some Arno that was actually Shay's son, that some part of Shay's mind still wanted to hold. " _This_ is real."

"All the worlds I visited are real," Shay said.

"They're all in your head," Arno objected.

"That doesn't mean they're not real," Shay said. "They're just in a place they're not supposed to be."

"So… that other Arno is in a world, inside your head?"

"I guess that's one way of looking at it," Shay agreed. "Are you… you're not jealous, are you?"

"No," he mumbled.

"Pull over," Shay said.

"Why?"

"Just do it," Shay said, and his voice was so firm that Arno obeyed without even thinking. When the car was stopped, he sat and stared at where his hands sat on the wheel, ten and two, like he'd been taught at driver's ed. "Arno," Shay said. "Arno…"

"What? I'm fine. You're fine. Everything's fine, why'd you tell me to stop?"

"Because I want you to look at me, and if you were still driving, this conversation would end in a fiery car crash."

Arno looked over at Shay, not because he wanted to, but because he had to prove that he could.

"All those worlds are real," Shay said. "Some of them I liked, some of them I didn't. But I didn't like any of them as much as I like being home. This is the only one I really belong in. Every other world has a Shay that's supposed to be there. And I can… steal their bodies, and borrow their memories, but in the end this is the only world that's home. I want to be here."

"What about the world with the baby?" Arno asked.

"It was good," Shay said quietly. "But I wouldn't trade away this world or you for any other Arno."

"Good," Arno whispered. He smiled a little. "Maybe we could do that movie after all, now," he suggested. "I think we've done enough talking for today."

Shay nodded, and the atmosphere in the car was a lot lighter as Arno started driving again.

After five minutes or so, Shay asked, "Aren't you still grounded?"

And Arno laughed. "For even longer than before when I don't get home from picking you up on time."

"So maybe we should…"

"Should face that problem when we get home?" Arno interrupted. "I completely agree." And he thought, as he changed lanes to turn toward the theater, that maybe he'd been spending too much time with Kadar.

And then he thought, no, he just hadn't been spending enough time with Shay. And it was time to start fixing that.


	26. Chapter 26

**[Alternate Universe #44,233]**

It took another three days to get back to the world where Hope was waiting for execution. He'd never tried to aim for a specific world before, so this was a new experience, and it took some getting used to. Finally, on the third night, he managed it.

And there was Hope.

She was halfway through saying something, and Shay realized dimly he must have gotten here midconversation. "-didn't want to talk to you," she was saying. "So… so go away and come back when you're _him_."

Which made absolutely no sense at all, and Shay was left blinking like an idiot at her. "Are… are you just crazy?" he asked. "Is that why you kept writing?"

And she looked at him, and her eyes went wide. "You're here," he said. "You're- when did you get here?"

"Um…" he had no idea how long this world's Shay had been in the room with Hope. "You saw me walk in."

"Not the body," Hope said. "The _mind_ , Shay, how long have you been in this world?"

"How do you know about that?" Shay demanded. Because she couldn't possibly be talking about alternate universes and time travel, but she couldn't possibly know that… (she couldn't, could she? Because the idea of this crazy, homicidal version of Hope knowing that about him was creepy, to put it lightly)

"Because-" Hope laughed, and there was an edge of insanity in that laugh. Shay started to think this was a bad idea. "Shay, Shay, Shay…"

She was reaching for him, straining against the chains that held her back. And there was something in her eyes that didn't look… it didn't look the way Shay would have expected. As strange as it sounded, even to him, Shay thought the look in her eyes was sweet. He hadn't seen Hope look at him like that since—

Not since all this started, when Shay had accidentally sent Hope to another world. After that (oh, _God_ , no-) she had been different, angry and vengeful (no, no, _no_ ), and- and maybe… not Hope? Not _his_ Hope, anyway.

He leaned forward, a sudden lurch of motion that brought their hands together. "You're you," he said, and she laughed in what sounded like pure relief.

"And you're so stupid, Shay." She squeezed his hand, and her fingers were as cold as her voice was warm. "I… it's been a long time. I hoped you would find me. And then I stopped hoping."

"You…" his brain was still playing catchup. Part of him didn't want this to be true, because the implications of it all were too staggering. If this was the Hope from his world, she had been trapped in the body of a convicted murderer for over a decade. And the Hope that should have been here, the insane, sadistic, mass murdering one, _that_ was the Hope that had been walking around Shay's universe as a free woman. "Is it true?" he asked at last. "Are you the Hope from my world?"

She nodded.

"Then it's all my fault that you're here," Shay said. "Hope, I am so, so sorry-"

Her hand tightened around his. "No. _No,_ Shay. Don't be sorry, I don't care anymore. It happened, it's over. I just want to go home." She took a shuddering breath. "Soon. Before the execution."

"I don't know how," Shay whispered, and the shame burned in his throat. "I can't even control when it happens to me. Barely, anyway. It took me three days just to get back here. I don't think it's possible to bring you home."

"But you… you brought me here. Why can't you take me home?"

"If I was angry, I could… I don't know, maybe I could send you somewhere else. That's how you got here. But I couldn't pick which world you ended up in. And… I don't know! I thought I knew everything there was to know about the worlds in my head, but here _you_ are! If I send you to some third universe, anywhere other than home, maybe _that_ world's Hope ends up here."

Hope wilted, slumping back in her chair. Her hand didn't let go of his, though. "You're right," she said. "We can't do that. There's only one version of me that deserves to be in this prison, and we both know which one it is."

Shay nodded.

"So she's… she took my place at home?"

"Yes."

"And nobody _noticed_ that I'd been replaced by a homicidal maniac?"

"Well, no. Actually."

"I guess that makes sense. I had her memories from the moment I woke up in this world. She must have gotten mine. Enough to fool everyone else, at least." Hope took a breath, and didn't look at Shay. "I didn't know, at first," she said. "I thought her memories were mine." Shay caught himself nodding- how long had it taken him to realize he was bouncing between worlds? "I was a monster, Shay, you don't know- you can't imagine… the things that woman did to people were absolutely horrendous. I thought I had done them, I _wanted_ to do them again. And then I started to feel like something was wrong, and when I remembered- when I was me again- it was so hard to deal with what I'd thought I was."

She was crying. _Hope_ was… crying. Shay didn't say anything until she was done, just held her hand and waited.

"I'm sorry."

"You haven't done anything wrong."

"No." And that thought seemed to give Hope some strength. "She has. What is she doing in my body?"

"She's trying to get me declared legally inhuman," Shay said. "So she can go back to experimenting on me."

"Well, she's a horrible person," Hope said frankly. "I should know."

"I'm so sorry," Shay said. "I know you told me not to apologize, but I want to be able to help you. I want you home, Hope. I want you safe. I just don't know how."

"Then… find out," Hope said. "Please? Try. I only have a few months left before-"

"Yes," Shay said, and… well, he had always been helpless against her smile. Even about far less important things. "Hope, if there is anything I can do to get you home, I will do it. I promise."

She pulled him closer, and the last thing Shay knew in that world was her mouth on his, her face only inches away, beautiful even in her prison jumpsuit.

And then he was back home, waking up to the sound of Arno's alarm clock, and laughing. Because in some other universe there was some other Shay that was no doubt trying to figure out why he was kissing a woman on death row.

"Are you okay?" Arno asked, the words muffled by a huge yawn.

"Yes," Shay lied. "Don't worry, everything's fine."

-/-

"Tell me the truth," William said. "Why are you putting so much effort into getting Shay back?"

Hope looked up from her computer and scowled at him. "That's none of your business, quite frankly," she said. "You're getting research that you want, you don't need to know anything else."

"I'm still your boss," William said. "And we're about to sue Cormac into losing his human rights. Regardless of the outcome, it's going to be one of the most publicized court cases of the decade. Probably more. Forgive me for wanting to know why you're willing to go through all this."

Hope sighed and rubbed at her head. She knew why, of course. Shay was dangerous. He was a thing and not a person. He could do so much good as a research subject, giving her access to other worlds and more resources that could help other people. But there was always something in the back of her mind when she thought about Shay, like there was some other reason she couldn't even tell herself.

"Hope?" William prompted.

"It's just interesting, isn't it?" And the words sounded far away, like they were coming from someone else. "I mean, you can cut a man's chest open, you can see his beating heart, and you can understand how it drives his blood through his body. You can cut a man's head open and see his brain, you can marvel at how it drives every thought in his mind and every action from his body. But Shay is like no one else. You can't just cut him open and see the worlds inside him. But with magic, maybe… I want to see what that _looks_ like, I think."

William laughed at her. "And what do you know," he asked. "About cutting people open?"

"I don't know," Hope admitted with a frown. "Nothing, I suppose." But she _did_ , didn't she..? She closed her eyes and there was something there, hovering just out of reach. Images of blood and bone, pooling under a body. It should have been repulsive. For some reason, it excited her.

"Well," William said. "Whatever your reasons, I'll stand with you on this. Cormac's a danger to himself and others. If you're interested in him to satisfy your own curiosity, I have no problem with that. I suppose, what I really wanted to know was whether or not this has anything to do with the fact that you two used to date. Because if this is just you, still carrying a torch after… what? Ten, fifteen years? If it's just that-"

"Definitely not," Hope said firmly. "I haven't had any sort of feelings for him since before he left Davenport. He's just a man, with something inside him that I want to get to."

William shrugged. "I can live with that. Anyway-" he held up a handful of legal papers that he'd come over to look at with her. "I'll get these to the lawyers to file." And he walked out without saying goodbye.

Hope sat down, rubbing a hand over her forehead where it hurt the most. She was still seeing blood behind her eyelids every time she shut her eyes. There was something there that she wanted to remember. She felt like it would explain everything, especially about why she needed so desperately to have Shay and his universes back under her control.

"Remember," she hissed to herself. "Remember, _remember_."

And very slowly, something started to come back.

-/-

Shay remembered.

Moments after stepping into the lab, Shay was flooded with the memories of his time before Hope had stolen him ten years ago. It looked exactly the same, spotlessly clean and well organized. It was a welcome sight after everything and everyone else that was different, and Shay felt himself relaxing a little.

He'd come back to see Haytham, on Altair's advice. Apparently, the older man wanted to see him, and frankly Shay wanted to see him as well. He'd been a good boss, and this had been a good place to work. Not to mention, of course, that this was the first place he'd ever met Arno.

He carpooled with Altair (not the most awkward thing he'd done lately, but close- he didn't know the man too well), because he wasn't quite up to driving yet. They went their separate ways in the lobby, with Altair heading up to work and Shay heading for the security desk to talk to the man there.

"Long time no see," the guard said.

And Shay grinned when he saw Gist there. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "Everyone told me you were out of the country, and you wouldn't be back for months!"

Gist shrugged, a wide smile of his own on his face. "Desmond called, he told me you were better, and I dropped everything."

"You're not back to working here, though, are you?" Shay asked. "I mean, not that I'm not happy to see you, but-"

"Oh, no," Gist said dismissively. "I'm just here for the day. I had this idea I might surprise you, and Kenway was alright with it when I asked."

"Well, it worked," Shay said. "Consider me surprised." He winced then, and pointed at Gist's chair. "Mind if I sit for a while?"

Gist gave the wheeled chair a little kick to send it toward Shay. "Sure. I heard you weren't back up to full health yet."

"Getting there," Shay said, with as much of a smile as he could manage.

"I'm sure you'll be back to normal in no time!" he gestured vaguely up the stairs. "I'm going to let Kenway know you're here, I know he wants to see you. But let's talk later."

Shay nodded, and Gist disappeared upstairs. He'd only been gone about fifteen seconds when Shay's cell rang. He dug it out of his pocket and answered without looking, still preoccupied by the unexpected reunion with Gist.

"Did you know your number is available online?"

"Who is this?" Shay asked. He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the display, but it was a number he didn't recognize.

"Amazing," the voice continued. "What you can find on the internet."

"Hope?" Shay guessed. Because there was no reason she should be calling him, and there was something funny about the way her voice sounded, but the voice did kind of sound like Hope's.

"Good guess," she said. "I've been thinking, Shay."

"About what?"

"Things," she said. "Things that I'm just now starting to remember."

"Oh," he said. His voice, remarkably, was calm. His mind, on the other hand, was racing. This was the Hope that should have been where _his_ Hope was, in another world waiting for a date with lethal injection. She couldn't be talking about that, could she? It would be too much of a coincidence, when he was just starting to understand the implications himself.

"You know, I never really understood why I felt so out of place in this world," Hope went on. "Until I realized it's not mine. Did you know that, Shay? Do you know where I come from?"

"I've been there," Shay said. "Once or twice."

"I keep having these bursts of memory," Hope said. "Blood. Bodies. And you know, it's funny, but so many of those bodies are people I know in this world. They were strangers there, but this world has given me a chance to get to know them." She sounded like she was smiling, even over the phone. "I'm thinking about killing them again. Just to see if it would be different now that I know them."

"You're insane."

"Semantics," Hope said. "And have fun trying to prove that, anyway."

"Why did you call?" Shay demanded. "What's the point?"

"Well, I suppose I just wanted to thank you," Hope said. "If not for you, I would still be home, about to be executed. But you put your girlfriend there in my place. I really appreciate that."

"You-"

But it was too late. Hope had already hung up, and Shay had no intention of calling her back. For thirty seconds, he just sat there, trying to _think_ , and then Gist came back.

"Kenway's ready for-"

"Thanks," Shay said, and he was halfway up the first flight of stairs before Gist could even shout at him to take it slow. He made it all the way upstairs without stopping, fear overriding the pain in his legs. Haytham was waiting for him in his office when Shay got there, looking worried and surprised.

"Gist called," he said. "He said you came running up for no reason."

"I have a reason," Shay insisted, and he refused to sit when Haytham offered him a chair. "It's just going to sound insane. I swear it's true, though, I swear, so please hear me out. I need your help."

He launched into the whole explanation about Hope and her other universe, about the fact that it was the mass murdering version of the woman that had been here for over a decade. And now she was remembering. "I have to stop her," Shay said at the end. "I need to get this Hope back to jail, and _my_ Hope back here. Only I have no idea how to do that, I can barely even get myself into that world. Maybe one time in three, that's all. I need to figure this out. And… and ten years ago, when I was still working here, you said that if I ever wanted the chance to find out how to use these universes I'm stuck with, you would help. Well, I need to figure it out now, and I'm asking for help."

"And you have it," Haytham said. "Of course."

Shay nodded. "Thank you. But I have one more favor to ask- you can't tell anyone."

"Why?" Haytham asked.

"Because the more people that know, the more chance there is of Arno finding out. That can't happen."

"He's seventeen years old," Haytham said. "Almost an adult. I'm sure he can handle this."

"So am I," Shay agreed. "But he shouldn't have to." He looked at Haytham, almost pleading. "You have a son," he said. "Don't you understand?"

"I understand," Haytham said. "But my son wouldn't."

"Well he's not the one I'm telling all this to," Shay said, confused. "So he's not exactly going to tell anyone, is he?"

"That's not what I'm trying to say," Haytham corrected him gently. "I'm saying I understand that fathers try to protect their sons. But sons rarely appreciate that effort."

"Arno doesn't have to know," Shay insisted stubbornly.

Haytham responded to this with a heavy sigh, his eyes raised to the heavens as if asking for strength. "If you truly want my silence, I will give it," he said. "But not without advising you to reconsider."

"I can always tell him later if he needs to know for some reason," Shay said. "But for now, I just don't think he needs to know any of this. He's had enough worrying."

"I will have to tell some people," Haytham said, changing the subject slightly. "Unless you were planning to do all this on your own."

Shay shook his head. "No," he said. "I mean, not if you're willing to have some people work with me."

"I just don't see how else it would work," Haytham said. "Not in the timeframe you say you're working under."

"I need to get the two Hopes to change places before the wrong one is executed," Shay said. "I only have a few months."

"You have less time than that if you lose your own court case," Haytham reminded him. "Do I have to remind you that's likely to resolve itself first? And if Hope wins, you probably won't have a chance to do anything else."

"I know," Shay said uncomfortably. "I'm meeting with a lawyer on Thursday. Hopefully they'll be able to suggest something to at least get the trial postponed."

" _Hopefully_ ," Haytham agreed. "But if this whole situation has taught us anything, I would think it would be that you can't completely trust Hope."

"Are you sure this is the right time for bad puns, sir?" Shay asked, and Haytham smiled vaguely.

"Maybe not," he agreed. "So here's what I propose. I'll spend the rest of the week gathering a few people for you. Only those I think we can trust, of course, and only those I think would do some good with this research. You focus on your visit with the lawyer, and give some thought to telling Arno. Come back on Monday, and you can get started."

"Thank you," Shay said. Haytham nodded and reached across the table to him, clasping his hand.

"Of course," he said. "And it's good to be working with you again."

 **-/-**

 **Now taking suggestions for who Shay's lawyer should be.**

 **Also, props to the person that reviewed first and said asked if Hope got switched with Hope in another world. I really wanted to do that, but I thought it would be too out there, but like clearly other people are thinking about it so hey! Awesome!**


	27. Chapter 27

**Thank you to all the people that suggested potential Shay lawyers: the person I picked was the one that I thought would fit best, but some of the other suggestions are going to show up in other places soon.**

There were some days when Arno didn't quite mind Bellec, and today was one of those days.

It had all started during eighth period gym, the last class of the day and, for many people, the worst. They were outside, taking advantage of one of the last few days of good weather to finish up a unit on soccer. One hundred and twenty students shared this gym period, and with only four teachers to watch them, things often got slightly unmanageable. Typically, one of the teachers would take point, shouting directions for drills or whatever they were supposed to be doing at the top of his or her lungs while the other three prowled the crowd of students, correcting mistakes or (more often) reminding people they were supposed to be paying attention. Not, for example, talking about other classes, or homework, or plans for the weekend.

Today, however, one of the teachers was on the sidelines with the twenty or so no dress students, the ones that weren't allowed to participate because they weren't wearing their gym uniforms. A second had gone off to deal with the potheads smoking under the bleachers, and hadn't yet come back. The sound of her angry shouting echoed along the entire length of the metal bleachers, and made Arno think she wasn't coming back anytime soon. With the third teacher trying to explain the passing drill they were supposed to be doing, only one teacher was left to keep order among all of them.

Arno didn't know anyone besides Bellec in this gym period, so when they were told to get into pairs for the drill, they'd sort of naturally gotten together. It was better than being paired with a stranger, at least. So they were standing around, waiting for their turn and dodging the occasional misaimed soccer ball, when suddenly someone came crashing into Arno, sending them both crashing to the ground.

Arno hit his head against the ground, hard, and suddenly he was seeing a myriad of futures all mixed up with the present, like the blow to the head had knocked them all loose. He groaned and pressed his hands to his eyes, shutting out the future. It didn't do anything to drown out the parts of the future he could hear, though, and Arno was treated to an out of order version of the sudden argument erupting between Bellec and the kid that had hit Arno.

What the fuck, man?" Bellec demanded. "You can't just go around running into people!"

"Before who catches up with you?"

"You still could have looked where you were going!"

"Why are you running away from your sister?"

"I said I was sorry, will you just stop shouting and move before she catches up with me?"

"My sister, man!"

"I'm sorry, I just- oh shit, she's going to kill me."

It made exactly zero sense, and when Arno risked opening his eyes again there were two- no, three- wavering versions of Bellec and the kid that had run into him before. Arno tried to focus on just one, to figure out which was the current version and which was a vision, but they were only seconds apart from each other and his head hurt too much to untangle things.

He felt a hand on his elbow, and that at least he knew for sure that was real. Arno let it start guiding him forward, eyes still closed, and for a long time he didn't know where he was going or what was being said around him.

When the throbbing in his head faded enough for Arno to focus on only the present again, he was in the nurse's office, with Bellec on a chair next to him. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Half past four."

"So it's been-"

"Two hours since you hit your head," Bellec said. "I figured you were having some freaky psychic problem and convinced the nurse you should stay here until you felt better." He glanced up at the clock. "Your phone keeps ringing, by the way. I think someone's worried you haven't come home yet."

Arno checked his phone. There were two missed calls from Shay and one from Elise. "I'll call them back later," he said, putting it away again. "Thanks, Bellec.

"Sure," Bellec said. And then he had to go and ruin the moment. "I got the name of that freshman that plowed into you, by the way. If you want to beat the kid up or something later."

"Why do you have to suck?" Arno complained. "Who says things like that?"

"Come on, pisspot," Bellec said. "I'll give you a ride home, I'll beat up that Frye kid tomorrow-"

"Bellec!"

"Everything's gonna be fine," Bellec said cheerfully.

"Not for the freshman!"

And they ran out of school through the almost empty hallways, shouting at each other because they could, and by the time they got to Bellec's car, Arno was almost sure no one was going to start beating people up. And with that point taken care of, Arno was free to go back to being grateful Bellec had been there. Anyone else would have made a big deal about it, or not known what to do, but he'd met Bellec in fighting classes. There had been a decent amount of knocks and bumps over the years, and Arno had been through worse episodes than this one. No one else would be shouting at him and racing him down the halls right now, they'd be handling him with kid gloves and asking if his brain was okay.

"Hey!" Bellec shouted down the hall, toward Arno. "Did you happen to see what's going to be on my pop quiz tomorrow while you were future spazzing?"

"I already told you I won't help you cheat!"

"Yea, yea," Bellec said dismissively. "Only a thousand times, pisspot."

-/-

Shay had been planning to wait for Arno to get home before leaving for the lawyer, but when he didn't come home with Elise (she didn't know where he was, but also didn't seem worried- Shay decided reluctantly that he shouldn't worry either), he got a ride from her instead.

"Thanks," he said, when they reached the building at last.

"Sure." She looked at the clock on the dashboard, then made an obviously false show of surprise. "Will you look at that?" she said. "We're early."

"Yes," Shay agreed. "And..?"

"Maybe you should just wait in here until it's time for your appointment," Elise suggested. "We could have a conversation, maybe."

"And do you have a topic in mind for this conversation?" Shay asked.

"Well now that you mention it…" and they smiled at each other and their mutual understanding. "I wanted to talk to you about Arno."

"What's wrong with him?" Shay asked immediately.

"Nothing," Elise said quickly. "He's fine. I just wanted to talk about him."

"Oh. So… what did you want to talk about?"

"He likes me," Elise said matter of factly. "I don't know how to tell him that I'm not interested, and I thought you might tell him to…. I don't know. Back off, take a hint, something. He's my best friend and I've known him since I was six years old. I can't think about him like that."

Shay said nothing, thinking this over. He had noticed, of course, that Arno was looking at Elise differently these days than he had ten years ago. He'd thought it seemed like a good match, as much as he'd thought about it at all. "If you really want me to, I'll say something to him," he said slowly. "But I wish you would think about it. There are worse people to spend the rest of your life with than your best friend."

"Because that worked out so well for you?" Elise asked. "I know you used to date the woman that's chasing you now. And I know you were best friends with her before that. Now she wants to cut your head open or something."

"What's going on with me and Hope is complicated," Shay said. "I'm not going to talk about that anymore. And you don't really think Arno would ever do that, would you?"

"It was just an example," Elise complained. "Worst case scenario. I can't think of a single example of best friends falling in love that works out well."

"Just… think about it," Shay said. "That's all I'm asking, okay? Give it a month, maybe. Get back to me then and we'll talk."

When she nodded, Shay got the distinct feeling that she was humoring him. But at least it was something, and… well, so maybe he was biased. But he cared what happened to Arno, and he thought Elise would be good for him, if she changed her mind.

"Thanks," he said.

"Do you know how long you'll be in there?" Elise asked. She wasn't exactly looking at him, and her tone was so polite it was almost formal. "I can wait here if you want, or you can call me when you're done."

"I'll call you when I'm done," Shay said. "I have no idea how long it'll be."

"Fine," Elise said, and Shay glanced at the car's clock again.

"I think I should go in now," he said, pushing open the door and pulling himself to his feet. "They might need me to fill out paperwork, or something."

"Good idea," Elise said. "And good luck, Shay, I really do hope it goes well today."

"Thanks," he mumbled. "So do I."

It was a short walk from Elise's car to the front of the building, and Shay managed to get there easily enough. If nothing else, the conversation with Elise had distracted him from the way his muscles still sometimes ached when he used them too much. He made it into the building's lobby, and was just starting to examine the directory there, to find out what floor his lawyer's offices were on, when a man approached him from the staircase at the other end of the room. Shay glanced up at him, then back at the directory, and then again at the man when it became obvious he was heading for Shay.

"You're Shay Cormac, yes?"

"Yes," Shay agreed. "And you're-"

"Shaun Hastings," the man said, interrupting Shay before he could get the name out. He held out a hand, and Shay took it cautiously.

"You're not exactly what I was expecting," Shay admitted, taking in the man's crisp, professional manner, the accent (British), the way his fingers twitched a little as he waited for Shay's reaction. Nervous, maybe, or impatient. It was impossible to tell which.

"What were you expecting, then?" Shaun asked. "I'm curious."

"Well it's just- Desmond said you were a friend of his," Shay said. "You don't look like most of Desmond's friends."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Shaun said.

"So you're _not_ one of his friends, or-"

"I'm on the fourth floor," Shaun said. "Can you manage the stairs?"

"Well enough," Shay said, and let Shaun take the lead on the way upstairs. "So… how _did_ you meet Desmond?"

"It's confidential," Shaun said. "Lawyer client privilege."

"So you met professionally?"

"You did bring your papers, didn't you?" Shaun asked, and Shay sighed and gave up. Clearly he wasn't getting any actual answers. "I need whatever official documentation you've gotten about the court case."

"I brought it," Shay agreed. "There's not much, though. Just an official notice from her lawyers."

"Alright." They reached the fourth floor at last, and Shaun pointed Shay toward a seat. "That's really not a lot. You don't have any paperwork from earlier?"

"You mean when she was illegally using me as a research subject?" Shay asked. "Um- no."

"That's going to make things more difficult," Shaun said. "If there were records of what she did, we could submit those as evidence, try to prove there's something criminal going on there."

"Of course there's something criminal going on with her," Shay said. "She's-" A mass murderer from another universe. "She's, um… she's the woman that held me hostage for ten years."

"And is there anyone else that can confirm this?" Shaun asked. "Anyone besides Hope that had a hand in the experiment?"

"Not really," Shay said. "From what I understand, she worked alone."

"So it's your word against hers."

"Well, there's Connor," Shay said. "Kenway. He was there for the end of it."

"It could help."

Shay sighed. "You don't seem as optimistic about this as I hoped you would be," he said. "She's trying to get me declared inhuman, is it really that hard to fight in court?"

Shaun gave him a flat smile. "Lawyers," he said. "Are terrible people. I should know. And it's not just Hope suing you, it's Hope with the power of Davenport Academy behind her. That means money, which means lawyers. Terrible lawyers, with no morals but boundless amounts of creativity. An entire team of them."

"And I just have you," Shay said.

"Yes," Shaun said. He smiled, and that smile had bite. "You have me."

"So you do agree to take the case?" Shay asked.

"Sure," Shaun said. "I like the occasional impossible cause." He turned on a recorder and set it in front of Shay. "So tell me everything from the beginning, and don't leave anything out."

An impossible cause. Shay could already feel himself getting chills at the way that phrase sounded.

-/-

Arno didn't see Shay until late that night, when he found the man moving his few possessions into the spare bedroom downstairs. For a little while, Arno hovered in the doorway, uncertain if he should interrupt. Then he cleared his throat and shuffled his feet a little, trying to be heard.

Shay looked around at once, and smiled when he saw Arno. It was a tired smile, though, that didn't really reach his eyes. "Busy day," Shay said.

"I guess." He pointed at the room in general. "Why are you moving?"

"Just downstairs," Shay said. "For now."

"For now?"

"For now."

"So that means you might be moving out, later," Arno said. "Can I come with you?"

"I'm not sure that would be a good idea," Shay said slowly.

Arno looked at him. "Oh. But… why not?"

"I talked to my lawyer today," Shay said. "He called me an impossible cause." He shrugged, trying to pass this off as not a big deal. "I can't tell if he was really serious, but either way- it's just really starting to hit me that I might not win. Six months from now, I could be… just a thing on a table. And if that happens, I guess I want to… I mean… last time, when Hope took me, the last thing I remember is almost killing your father. And you crying. If it has to happen again, I want it to be easier for you this time."

"Oh," Arno said. Again. Like a stupid broken record. He stayed there, silent, for a few minutes while Shay worked. Then he said, "Um… Shay?"

"Yes?"

"I don't think you're making things easier for me," Arno said. "I think you're making things easier for me. Because- because, you remember me crying, I guess- I don't think I cried that much." He tried to smile a little bit. "But I remember it a little bit differently. I remember… I was scared. Because I'd had that vision a hundred times already. And then you did your thing with- you know, with all the worlds, and stuff. And I remember it seemed like the whole world was exploding, it was- well, you were there."

Shay nodded, a quick jerk of his head. He still had his back to Arno.

"But you were there," Arno said. His smile was more genuine this time. "You seemed like you were a lot bigger back then, and I just remember you hugged me so tight, that even though I didn't know what was going on, you made me feel safe. And for, um… for ten years, whenever I felt scared about anything, I just remembered that, and I felt better. So my point is, I guess, that I really don't want you to leave."

Shay turned back around. "You might be the only person there that day with good memories of what happened," he said.

"Maybe," Arno agreed. "But that doesn't make it less valid, does it?"

"No," Shay said softly.

"First of all," Arno said. "You're going to win this case, okay? Desmond told me about Shaun, he's a good lawyer. He's going to get you off. You won't have to leave. And second of all, even if things go horribly wrong and- and _Hope_ wins, I'd still rather have you around as long as possible. You're kind of the closest thing I have to a father, Shay."

"What about your actual father?" Shay prompted.

Arno didn't say anything, not for a long time. Then: "I don't like him."

"That's a horrible thing to say."

"It's a horrible thing to feel," Arno said. "I wish I could love him, but he never cared about me. Not like you did."

"Not like me," Shay said. "Like him."

"What?"

"People don't show we care in the same way. Just because your father and I are different, that doesn't mean only one of us is allowed to care."

"Well I could never tell," Arno said bluntly. He wanted this conversation over, already, and regretted bringing up his father. "Can we just-"

"I met him."

"What?"

"When I was universe hopping, one of the worlds I went to was the one where your father's mind is."

"You… did you talk to him?" Arno asked. And then (as a sharp, unexpected pain sliced at him somewhere on the inside), "Did he talk about me?"

Shay nodded. He still wasn't looking at Arno.

"Well… well, what did he say?"

"He said you were his biggest regret," Shay said slowly. And then, spinning around as if he _knew_ how much those words had hurt, he frowned and beckoned at Arno to come closer. When they were together, Shay said, "I didn't mean it like that. Not that you are a regret, but that the way he treated you was a regret. He asked me to look after you again."

Arno sighed, long and slow. He'd gotten used to the idea that his father was just… gone. Brain dead in a hospital bed half an hour away. Now he didn't know what to think, learning that his father's mind was actually in another world, doing… whatever was going on there.

"So he's still alive," Arno said. "He's okay?"

Shay gave him a wry smile, the kind of smile that had absolutely no good humor behind it. "He was when I saw him," he said. "But he said he suspected that the Shay from that world was coming to kill him."

Arno snorted. "Figures. So… dad's dead?"

"Probably. Maybe."

It was a relief, almost. Except… "So does that mean that the other universe's version of my dad is in the body from the hospital here?"

"Probably," Shay said. He sounded surprised. "I hadn't thought of it that way before."

Arno nodded. He wondered if he would like to meet the other version of his father, then decided it didn't matter. What were the odds of him waking up, anyway?

"Maybe I shouldn't have told you," Shay said. "I'm sorry."

"No," Arno said quickly. "Don't be- I'm glad I know now."

"Are you okay?"

"I will be," Arno said. "As long as you don't leave. Don't… don't move out."

"Just downstairs," Shay said, and Arno sagged against the wall. "Alright?"

"Alright," Arno said and he hugged Shay, quick and tight, before he went back upstairs to his own room.

 **-/-**

 **Just gauging interest here: someone last chapter reviewed and asked for Haytham and Connor's history in this world. So, there's nowhere it really fits in this story, unfortunately. (Which is sad, because I actually have a whole backstory for them that just isn't going to end up making it in). However, if more people are interested, I would be willing to write a fic that's set in this same world, with just random scenes between people, or characters' backstories, or whatever.**


	28. Chapter 28

Elise caught Arno in the middle of his lunch, surprising him with a candy bar thrown right at his face.

"Ow," he complained. "What was that for?"

"What do you mean, what was that for?" Elise asked. "I just gave you free chocolate."

"By throwing it at my face!" But he picked up the chocolate bar anyway, and smiled a little when he saw that it was his favorite. "Thank you."

"So." She sat down across the table from him and pointed at the folder in Arno's hands. "It's Saturday, why are you wasting your time on whatever that is?"

"It's my dad's hospital file," Arno said, sliding it across the table so she could see.

"Oops." She shot him an apologetic look. "I didn't mean wasting your time like that- I mean- why are you looking at that?"

Arno opened the folder and took out one of the older sheets of paper. "When he first went in, his doctor told me there was an alternative to the medical treatments he's been receiving so far, and it might actually help him wake up."

"So why didn't you take them up on it?"

Arno shrugged. "I was just a kid, and they said the potions they were thinking about would either help him or kill him or do absolutely nothing. I got scared when they said kill, said no, and didn't think about it again until last night. I called this morning, and apparently it's still a viable treatment option."

"Why are you thinking about it now, though?" Elise asked.

"I- Shay told me he's not in there."

"And you lost me," Elise said bluntly. "Who's not where?"

"My dad's mind is in another universe," Arno said calmly. Which was funny, because he didn't feel calm. "In another version of himself. Shay talked to him, while he was jumping around into other worlds. So I thought… that would mean that other version of him is here, right? I guess I kind of want to meet the guy. Maybe… if I know him, I'll be able to understand a little bit about the world my dad's in. I might feel closer to him. And anyway, it's not fair to the other- I mean, for the version of him that's here, right? Like, dad thought that Shay was going to kill him, because I screwed up what I thought my vision meant. So he at least sort of expected something. But the other him was just living his normal life, and all of a sudden he's stuck in a coma in some other universe. How is that fair?"

"You're a funny guy, Arno," Elise said. "I don't think most people would think like that." She looked almost like she was starting to pity him, and Arno looked down at the table rather than at that face. He didn't like pity much.

"Maybe they would, if they had a life like mine," he pointed out. "I'm psychic, Shay sees other worlds, you know this isn't as crazy to me as it would be to most people."

"Still a little bit crazy, though?" she suggested, and if Arno hadn't been so conflicted and worried, he might have smiled when she did. When his face didn't change, however, her expression clouded over as well. She hesitated, then reached for his hand with hers. "I didn't mean it, Arno. It was just a joke."

"I know," he assured her. "I just don't feel much like laughing right now."

"That's what worries me," Elise said. "Can I help you at all?"

"Tell me what to do," Arno begged. "I keep thinking it over and over, but I can't figure anything out. If I authorize this treatment, he might wake up. But he also might die. And if I do nothing, then probably nothing at all will change and he'll spend the rest of his life in a coma."

"I'm not you," Elise protested. "And this isn't my choice."

Arno tried not to look like that was upsetting him even more. It was unfair of him to ask, maybe, but he wanted her to be _with_ him. He wanted his choices to be hers as well, for their lives to be so closely tied together that neither of them would have to make decisions or live their lives alone. Arno just felt… lonely.

He leaned back in his chair and tossed the files down. "Fuck it all," he grumbled. ( _"Arno,"_ Elise scolded.) "We'll try the potions."

-/-

Hope had spent a very long time alone, in a prison cell, just trying to keep herself sane. It had also been a very long time since Hope had felt any… well, hope. (When they were children, Shay had teased her mercilessly about her name, mostly by making bad puns at every available opportunity.)

And it was Shay that had given hope back to her. Before he found his way into this world, she had really thought that she was about to be killed for crimes she had not committed and could barely stand to think about. Now, she was cautiously optimistic that maybe, just _maybe_ , she might get to go home before that happened.

If only Shay, _her_ Shay, could stay with her for longer than a few minutes before being snatched away and replaced by the Shay of this world, who did not much like her and definitely didn't understand. On the day when she'd finally convinced her-Shay that she didn't really belong here, things had almost been perfect. For once, she'd actually felt _happy_ , and then-

"What are you _doing_?" Shay jerked backward, almost hard enough to fall out of his chair. Hope could tell, immediately, that this was not her Shay. "What the-" He was confused, and that was part of it, looking at her like she was some kind of monster. And that was part of it too. But mostly it was in the eyes, in the way he inhabited his own body. "What am _I_ doing?"

"Crap," Hope grumbled, slouching back in her chair. She had no idea when, or if, her Shay would make it back to this world. And she had no guarantee that he would be able to make it to her before being pulled back home.

"Were you trying to kiss me?" Shay demanded. He resettled himself back onto his chair, although Hope noticed that he had positioned himself significantly farther from her than he had been before. Then he looked at her, and even though he wasn't _her_ Shay, they shared the exact same expression when they were confused. Maybe that unsettling familiarity was what made Hope let her guard down a little bit.

"I think you were trying to kiss me, actually," she said. And then, because she was curious, "What was it like, from your perspective?"

"Like nothing," Shay said. "We didn't actually kiss, you crazy-"

"Not that!" she scowled at him. "I mean-" she forced herself to calm down, because shouting at Shay had never worked, in any world. "Look, you walked in here, you checked out, and five minutes later you're up in my face, yes? So do you remember what happened when you weren't here, or is it all just a blank space for you, or-"

"I was here the whole time! I-" Shay made a sad little noise and pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead against a sudden pain. "What do you know?"

"I know…" Hope spared a moment on a prayer, because it wasn't like she could do anything else to help herself, at this point. "That this world isn't the only one out there. And just for a couple of minutes, the Shay from one of the other worlds was in your head."

"Or you're working with someone outside the prison to drug me," Shay said. "Or I just had a stroke or something, and you're taking advantage of that to freak me out."

"Why would I want to freak you out?" Hope asked. "You're my lawyer, I can't exactly count on anyone else to help me out of here."

"I don't believe you," Shay said stubbornly. "There has to be some other explanation. There can't be another me inside my head, that's not _possible_!"

"But you're thinking about it anyway," Hope pointed out. "If it was as impossible as you claim it is, you wouldn't even be considering this."

"But- I don't-" He stood up. "I'm leaving."

"You'll be back though," Hope said, and she managed to make her voice sound confident instead of desperate.

"Why should I?"

Because it was her. And because he was him. And multiple universes be _damned_ , she wasn't letting him get away this easily. "Think about it," Hope said. "Just think. And then get back to me."

He didn't say a single thing in response to that, just opened the door and left, calling for a guard to take Hope back to her cell. There were butterflies in her stomach, like some kind of stage fright, but worse. She wanted him back. Or not him, but… _him_.

Her thoughts swirled in an angry whirlwind, and Hope forced herself to take a deep breath… and let them go. It was out of her hands now, All she could do from prison was wait, and… and _hope_ that Shay would come through for her.

-/-

A week later, Arno finally went to visit Charles in the hospital. He had decided, for the sake of practicality, to stop thinking of the man as his father, given that technically he was not. Technically, it was some other version of Arno's father inhabiting that body.

Shay went with him, and after the updates from doctors and nurses (prognosis: good, but no one was exactly sure when he would wake up), the two of them sat by Charles's beside and waited.

"Your father recognized me," Shay said after about a quarter of an hour. "I never asked him how he knew, but… well, maybe it was the way I was losing my mind at the time." He smiled wryly.

"Don't joke about that," Arno said softly. "You're _fine_. And you're _home_."

"I know," Shay said quickly. "And I'm glad I am."

"Why are we never happy anymore?" Arno asked. "It feels like nothing ever happens anymore unless it's bad- why can't we all just be happy like we used to be?"

"It's not so different now," Shay said. "We're all just doing the best we can."

"I was happy before," Arno insisted. "I was very happy, before you left."

"Arno?" Shay smiled at him, almost teasing. "You were happy because you were seven. It was the job of the adults around you to protect you from all that. Now you're practically an adult yourself. You have to start to realize that life is hard, and that the happy people are the ones that can be happy despite their hardship."

"So you're happy now?" Arno asked. "Even though you're on trial and you lost ten years of your life, and-"

"Yes."

"But-"

" _Yes_ ," Shay insisted.

"Oh." He smiled. "Well, that's good, then. I can be happy too."

"God, Arno," Shay laughed. "I love you, kid."

Arno's smile got bigger as Shay reached over and put his arms around Arno's shoulders. "Why?" he asked. "I mean- thanks, but that kind of came out of nowhere, didn't it?"

"Not so much," Shay said honestly. "I was just thinking that I've never met anyone that refused to be happy unless I was, too."

"Well- I love you too," Arno said. "And the people I love, I want them to be happy." He leaned closer to Shay, reminded for a second of that simple, uncomplicated joy of being a child. "I didn't want to grow up," he said abruptly. "Every birthday I had while you were gone, I felt like I was betraying you by moving on."

"By growing up into a good person?" Shay asked. "Someone I can be proud of?"

Arno made an embarrassed (and embarrassing) noise and felt his face go red. "You're proud of me?"

"Yes."

"I wish you had been my real father," Arno said.

"Not in this universe," Shay said, and Arno rolled his eyes at the reminder that there was some other world where Shay actually was his father.

"But somewhere else," Arno mumbled. Then he remembered what Shay had said about being happy, even when unhappy things were happening. He made an effort at smiling. "So is there some universe where I get to be _your_ father?"

"Sure," Shay said. "Not biologically, at least, not that I remember. But there was at least one where you were like a father to me."

"Cool," Arno said. "How about a brother?"

"Sure." And Shay laughed at him. "You were my sister once, too."

"What? Ugh, gross!"

"It's true," Shay insisted. "There were… I don't know, maybe half a dozen worlds where you were female. And in one of them, you were my little sister."

"I suddenly regret asking!" Arno laughed. Then he stopped, still smiling. "But seriously, Shay. I wish I'd grown up in a world where I could call you dad."

"I'm happy enough with this," Shay said, and Arno had to admit that… well, he was too. He didn't exactly have a father in Shay, but he had someone he could look up to, someone he cared about, someone he loved regardless of the actual lack of genetics. Eventually, when visiting hours were over, they left together.

-/-

Hope wanted to kill someone.

Anyone, really, she wasn't picky. It was just that she had only remembered her first (real) life about a month ago, and ever since then, she had felt… different. It was like a sort of itchy, uncomfortable feeling that crawled around under her skin, made her want to go out and do something.

Kill someone. It was just that she'd only just remembered that she used to do that, and suddenly it was like she needed to prove to herself that she still could. Because as much as she had believed, and _still_ believed, that she'd done valuable research… the killing was like an addiction. She missed it. Missed the power of it, knowing that she could do whatever she wanted to whatever fortunate person happened to fall into her path. She wanted to be up to her elbows in the guts of a still breathing man, with her hands around his heart.

Shay's heart would be nice. Ironic, even, given how in love he was with the version of herself she had replaced in this world. Hope enjoyed the odd bit of irony. The little jokes that no one else ever got.

But Shay wasn't around. He was clear across the other side of the country, and Hope wasn't getting him back until she won her court case and got custody of him. And there were advantages to jumping the gun and just taking him now, but there were still more advantages to waiting.

It would be a legal killing, if she waited. This world was giving her the chance to legally kill him. When he was no longer considered human, when Hope _owned_ him, she could do what she wanted. There were potions she'd read of in the last few years that would help with that. A few well brewed concoctions would have him begging to be disemboweled and picked apart. None of Hope's previous subjects had ever been conscious during her experiments, and she spared a moment to think about what fresh joys that might bring.

And on top of that, she could take her time. She wouldn't have to worry about being found before she was done with her subject. She could work at her own pace, without worrying that she would be caught and stopped before she finished.

So it was in her own best interest to keep Shay alive until she was legally allowed to kill him. But she still wanted someone dead, and Shay's case wouldn't be wrapped up until nearly Christmas. A good present for when Hope won, but not very helpful at the moment. Frustrated with the lack of convenient bodies to satisfy her, she pushed aside the reports she'd been working on, and headed outside.

The school's campus was busy this time of the day. Class had just let out, and most of the students had scattered around the grounds in pairs or small groups to enjoy the last of the year's good weather. A few of the younger ones, running and pushing at each other, strayed too close to where Hope stood, and she reached out to pull him aside.

"Yes ma'am?" the boy asked.

He was maybe eight years old. Too small, under normal circumstances, but Hope was _desperate_ … it was like a hunger that no food could satisfy. She wanted- needed, really…

"Ma'am?" the boy pressed. He squirmed a little in her grasp, childish voice grating unpleasantly against her ears. "Can I go, ma'am?"

"Yes," Hope said. She relaxed her grip on the boy, letting him and his high pitched voice run away. She could just imagine what he would sound like when he screamed, and she was not in the mood to deal with that.

She had time, still. She could afford to be a little bit picky. After all, there were hundreds of other potential subjects within reach. She didn't have to take the first one she found.

And so the boy ran off after his friends, and Hope resigned herself to waiting. That had always been her strong suit anyway. Given enough time, Hope had faith that she would find the perfect target. With patience, she could come up with the perfect plan. And soon enough, she would be up to her elbows in the guts of a still living man, with her hands around his beating heart.


	29. Chapter 29

**[Alternate Universe #44,233]**

It was getting easier to direct himself into this universe at will. Every night, now, when he fell asleep, Shay woke in the world where Hope was. Even though he didn't normally get to see her- prison visiting rules prohibited visitors to death row too frequently- just knowing that they were in the same world helped.

Besides, he had an unhappy feeling that the Shay of this world wasn't doing as much as he could to help Hope. Not maliciously, or anything, it was just that Hope was like any other case to him. He didn't have the same emotional connection that Shay did, and he didn't have any reason not to think she was batshit insane.

So it was up to Shay to save Hope. Every night, when he switched universes and took over for the Shay there, he would spend hours with legal books and borrowed knowledge, trying to find anything that would hold off Hope's execution long enough to get her home and the crazy Hope back here. So far, he had been less than successful, but Shay wasn't ready to give up. He hadn't been trying for long.

Tonight, as usual, Shay had closeted himself away in a room at the law firm where the Shay of this world worked. Sometime around eleven, Arno came in. He had started doing that a few nights a week, coming in when he'd finished his grunt work. As the newest member of the law firm here, he ended up doing a lot of extra research to help his coworkers, and rarely got home at anything resembling a reasonable hour.

He never seemed to mind, not the way most Arnos in most worlds would have minded. Something in the way his life had shaken out in this world had attracted him to the legal profession, but Shay wasn't close enough to this Arno to find out exactly what had brought him to this point. And apart from a few moments of idle curiosity, Shay hadn't had the time to wonder. Arno wasn't the one with his life at risk here, after all.

They didn't say anything to one another for a while. Arno had brought a paper bag with what looked like a long overdue meal inside it, and he just leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed and focused on… Shay grinned a little at the sight of cold pizza and fruit snacks. His Arno had taken almost the exact same lunch to school the week before, and it was funny, sometimes, the surprising similarities between apparently different worlds.

"What's wrong, sir?"

Shay started at being caught looking, and shook his head. "You just reminded me of someone I know," he said.

"Sir?"

"You don't have to call me sir," Shay said, trying to hide his lack of comfort. His Arno had never once called him _sir_ , and as different as that Arno was to this one, they still had very nearly the same voice.

"You're my boss," Arno protested.

"Not right now," Shay said, his attention already drifting back to the books on the table in front of him. "Look, it's almost midnight, there's no one else around and no reason to stand on ceremony."

"Alright then," Arno said hesitantly. "Si- um, I mean… can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away."

"Why are you so different lately?" Arno asked. "I've been coming in here almost every night since I got hired to have dinner and, um… well, nap. Usually. So… why are you here? And why are you- I mean…"

"Spit it out," Shay said. "You don't have to be nervous."

"Well, you act like a different person down here at night than you do during the day, and I kind of wondered if you were okay."

"I'm fine," Shay said. "It's just that I'm secretly from another world and I steal the body of this world's Shay at night."

"Oh," Arno said. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Sure," Arno said. "If you don't want to tell me, you're the boss. You don't have to."

Shay leaned forward across the table, suddenly curious. "What would it take to convince you I'm telling the truth?" he asked.

"This isn't really funny…"

"Just humor me," Shay said. "Either I'm telling the truth, or I'm crazy but I'm still your boss."

"Well…" Arno shrugged one shoulder. "I guess I have a couple thoughts."

They spent the rest of the night talking it over. Truthfully, Shay wasn't particularly concerned with convincing Arno he was from another world. If anything, he just wanted the other version of Shay to realize what was going on, because if he _did_ , he might be willing to help with Hope. He thought Arno might be able to help with that, because the boy was _smart_.

And sure enough, by morning when Shay woke up back in his own bed in his own world, they had a plan.

-/-

Malik had not wanted to enroll in the public school where his brother and his brother's friends went. Maybe he was just spoiled, but after over a decade at a prestigious academy of advanced magical education, this school was a little… underwhelming. They only had one elective in alchemy, for crying out loud, and apparently the things they covered there were the same things Malik had learned in the fourth grade.

"You're just spoiled," Kadar told Malik cheerfully as he walked his brother to the front office.

"Me?" Malik demanded. "Spoiled? You know I work hard."

"Well then, you're a snob." He pointed down a hallway that to Malik looked exactly the same as all the others. "This way!" he chirped, in a voice of such absolute innocent that it didn't give Malik a chance to protest what he'd said earlier.

He spent a while in the main office, as Malik had his new schedule explained to him, his new locker circled on a map, and a thick handbook slash planner thrust into his arms. It was all very clinical and disinterested, and Malik was flagging a little as he went back out to the hallway.

Kadar was still waiting there, and he hugged Malik abruptly.

"Kadar!" Malik protested. "We're in public!"

"I'm just happy we're going to be in the same school for once," Kadar said. "We haven't done that since kindergarten, it's going to be great! Can I see your schedule, Mal? Maybe we have some classes together. Maybe-" But then Kadar stopped abruptly and frowned. "Oh _damn_."

"Language," Malik said.

"No," Kadar said urgently. "You don't get it-"

"What?" Because Malik was looking at the same thing Kadar was, but it was all just an unremarkable mess of humanity to him. Students pushed past each other, heading for classes or lockers, calling to their friends as they went.

"Around the corner," Kadar said, pointing to something that was just barely visible at the end of the hall. "Come on!"

But Malik wasn't great at navigating the crowded halls, and he lagged behind Kadar for several seconds. When he finally caught up, Kadar was kneeling over a boy Malik did not know. As he approached, the kid shot him an angry look, jumped up, and ran off. A thin trail of blood dripped onto the ground from his nose as he fled.

"What was that all about?" Malik asked.

"That's Jacob," Kadar said, gesturing in the general direction where the boy had run. "Last week, he accidentally hit Arno in the head with a soccer ball and kind of knocked him out of the present for a while."

"What?"

Kadar shrugged. "Some psychic thing, I don't know. Arno tried to explain it to me but we were texting and it was kind of hard to keep up with what he was saying. Anyway, point is, Arno told _me_ that Bellec told _him_ he was going to beat Jacob up over that, and Arno told him not to, but, well-" he gestured a second time after Jacob. "Poor kid. He's just a freshman, you know?"

"Does this kind of thing happen a lot, around here?" Malik asked. He tried not to sound too disapproving, but it was hard not to make mental comparisons to the homestead.

"Not too much," Kadar said. "I wish someone would do something about Bellec, though. He thinks he's the toughest guy here, and if someone would just knock him down a peg…" He shrugged, helpless. "What can you do? Some people are just like that, and frankly he's been learning to fight since he was like six. I'm not going up against him."

-/-

During lunch, Malik told Arno about Bellec beating up Jacob, and for a second Arno just stared across the table with his mouth open. Elise reached over and prodded it shut while Kadar glared daggers at his brother.

"What?" Malik asked. He looked around at the other three, his expression unusually uncertain. He focused at last on Kadar. "Did I say something wrong?"

"You shouldn't have told Arno."

"Why? What's he going to do?"

"That," Kadar said, and groaned as Arno got out of his seat and headed for the corner of the room where he knew Bellec usually sat. Sure enough, he was there, reading something on his phone while working his way through an extremely greasy slice of pizza.

"Hey, Arno," Bellec said when he saw him. "What's up?"

"You beat up a freshman," Arno said. "On purpose! Because he accidentally hit me with a soccer ball, I mean- what is wrong with you, you crazy person?"

"Hey," Bellec said sharply. "Don't call me crazy."

"Then stop being a bully."

"I'm not a bully!"

"What do you think that kid would say?" Arno demanded. "Jacob. Do you think he would call you a bully?"

"I was just trying to stick up for you," Bellec said.

"I asked you not to!"

Bellec laughed at him, and that was when Arno threw the first punch.

He and Bellec had fought dozens of times over the years, in classes and practice and the occasional competition. But never had the fought like this, in actual anger. Arno didn't know what Bellec was going through in his life, but from the way he was moving and the sheer anger in ever movement, he was clearly using Arno as a punching bag the same way Arno was using him as a convenient way to deal with everything that had been stressing him out in the last couple of weeks.

In seconds they were on their feet, in the middle of a rapidly growing empty space. Everyone in the cafeteria was on their feet, but no one seemed to want to get in their way. Not that Arno could blame him. They were both bleeding and bruised by this point, and Arno could feel things breaking.

"Maybe I'll hit you hard enough to put you in a coma," Bellec hissed at them when the flow of the fight brought them close together again. "You can see your father, maybe-"

"Don't talk about him!" Arno shouted.

"Right, right," Bellec said. His eyes were bright, like he knew his words were hurting more than his blows at the moment. "I forgot, you threw him away and replaced him with that psycho-"

No. He could _not_ have just said that, not about Shay.

"You're an ass!" Arno screamed, voice breaking a little. "The fuck is _wrong_ with you, man? You can't say you're protecting me with one breath and then say shit like that in the next-"

Bellec's next blow was the one that sent the world crashing in on him, and the empty darkness of unconsciousness rushing up to claim him.

-/-

Hope looked expectantly at Shay as he came into the visiting room, but to her disappointment it wasn't the version of the man she wanted to see. She can tell by the way he hangs back and won't quite look her in the eye, and so she leans back in her uncomfortable metal chair and waits for him to tell her whatever he's come here to say.

But he seems to be struggling to get the words out, fidgeting in his seat, opening and closing his mouth without any sound coming out. He keeps rubbing at his arm, and he won't look Hope in the eye. Even from not-her Shay, this is unusually distant behavior. Eventually, her curiosity gets the better of her, and she says, "What's wrong?"

"I… have to ask you something," Shay said.

"Then ask."

"But if the answer is yes, I'm going to feel very stupid."

"Who am I going to tell while I'm in prison?" Hope asked, and Shay nodded like this made absolute sense. It irritated Hope a little, and she couldn't help thinking that _her_ Shay would have tried to comfort her, instead of just accepting her prison sentence as given.

"Alright," he said, and slid a letter across the table toward her. The way her hands were chained to the chair meant she couldn't actually take it, but she could see it clearly enough to recognize Shay's handwriting. Strangely enough, it was also addressed to Shay.

"You… wrote a letter to yourself?" she asked.

"No," Shay said slowly. "According to what the letter says, there's another version of me from another universe, and he stole my body to write this letter to me."

"He did?" she asked, brightening a little.

"Yes. So what I was going to ask was… well, he claims that you are also from another world." Shay managed to look her in the eyes for a second, then his eyes dropped again to the tabletop. "My question is- are you?"

"Yes."

"You _are_?" She laughed in surprise as he looked up at her abruptly, his expression absolutely flabbergasted. "So it's all real."

"That must have been a pretty convincing letter," Hope said. "If that's all the confirmation you needed, you must have been pretty close to convinced already."

"A letter, I could have written myself," Shay said. "I could be sleepwalking, or crazy."

"So there was something else?" Hope asked.

"When… _he…_ was in my body, he left me, um…" he seemed to be somehow getting more flustered as the conversation went on. "A souvenir."

"A souvenir?" she repeated. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"A tattoo," Shay mumbled, his face going bright flaming red. "He went and put a tattoo on my body to prove he was here."

"Oh," Hope said, grinning. "Well, pretty hard to argue with that, right? You would have to be off the deep end to not notice someone stabbing you over and over again with a needle. Or, you know. Not there."

"Yes," Shay agreed. He sounded distant. "I can't believe…"

"I'm sorry," Hope said. "He's just trying to help me."

"How?"

"Maybe you won't believe me," Hope said. "But I'm not the one that killed all those people. She was tried and convicted, and then we switched places. I've been stuck here ever since, and _she's_ been walking around my world, in my body, doing I don't know what. Shay- my Shay- he's just trying to help me come home."

"I can help," Shay said. He still looked like he was in a state of mild shock. "I mean- you being here… if you really didn't kill anyone- that's not justice. I wouldn't be doing my job if you were killed for the murders you didn't commit."

"Thank you," Hope says. And then she takes pity on him, because he looks like his brain is about to leak out of his ears from the effort of processing all this. "You should go home now. Get some sleep."

He nodded and got up. "I'll be back in a couple of days."

"Thank you," Hope said again, and smiled at him as he got up to go. She was still a prisoner here, but with two Shays on her side, she wasn't sure there was anything in this world or any other that could keep her from her freedom.

-/-

With Shaun busy filing papers for the upcoming trial and Haytham busy arranging a team to help Shay figure out how to master his universes, Shay was left at a bit of a loose end. He had nothing much to do and nothing to distract him until Arno came home from school. But it wasn't even lunch yet, and Shay was reduced to browsing the internet while he waited. It wasn't even a physical therapy day, so there was literally nothing to look forward to.

Maybe he would cook something for lunch. He hadn't cooked anything in ages, and hadn't liked it much when he was younger, but there was nothing else to do. He was just about to get up and go see what was in the fridge when his phone rang.

Elise's name flashed onto the screen, and Shay stared for a second. Why should she be calling while still in school? Probably it was just a butt dial, or something, but… he answered it anyway.

"Shay!" Elise sounded upset, and by the quality of the call, Shay guessed she was outside somewhere. There were sirens in the background.

"Elise? What's wrong?"

"Don't panic," she said, which immediately got Shay's heartrate speeding up. Nobody started conversations with phrases like _don't panic_ unless something had gone seriously wrong. "Arno's probably going to be okay."

"What happened to him?"

"The paramedics didn't want to say much, but-"

"Elise!" He shouted into his phone, too afraid to bother regulating his tone. "What. Happened!"

"He got in a fight," Elise said. "It's a long story, but he and the other guy are both going to the hospital."

"Where?" Shay demanded, already running for his shoes and coat.

"Shay, you can't." Elise sounded frustrated. "I didn't call you so you could go running out after Arno and get in an accident because you haven't driven in ten years! I just wanted you to know."

"He can't be there alone," Shay said.

"Well, he's unconscious at the moment," Elise said, which did not make Shay feel better at all. "And the school's calling my dad, so he'll be there soon."

"Why are they calling _him_?" Shay demanded.

"Because dad's the listed emergency contact on Arno's school registration," Elise said. "It's not personal, or anything, it's just a pain in the ass to get those papers changed and no one thought it was worth the effort."

"But-"

"I have to go," Elise said abruptly, and Shay was suddenly left alone with his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest and his phone clamped pointlessly against his ear. He had not been this afraid since the day he'd sent Charles Dorian into another universe, and ruined his life and Arno's in the process.

It might have been better if Elise had never called at all. If he couldn't do anything either way, it would be better to have no information than this awful half a story of what was going on.

Shay put his phone down with shaking, trembling fingers. Then he picked it up again and threw it, hard, all the way across the room so that it shattered against the far wall and left a dent.

He was angry, suddenly, and had no intention of sitting around at home when his baby was lying in a hospital bed somewhere. There were only two hospitals close enough to the school for Arno to reasonably have been taken to, and that wasn't too bad. Shay would visit both of them, if he had to, and he wasn't going home until he found Arno.

And that was what he did. It took three hours and some creative maneuvering to get to the hospital, and then some equally creative half truths to convince someone to confirm that Arno was there, and hand out the room number. But it was all worth it, to be there with Arno when he finally woke up.

For a second, when his eyes were still squinty and half open, he stared up at Shay with a kind of barely aware wonder. Then he blinked, and smiled in a lazy way that reminded Shay he was getting pain killers pumped straight into his blood supply through an IV. "Dad…" he said, and his voice was barely more than a croak. He reached limply for Shay's hand with one of his, and Shay took it without arguing the _dad_ comment. Maybe right now was not the moment.

"What happened, Arno?"

"He beat this kid up," Arno mumbled. "Because the kid hit me with a soccer ball. But I _told_ him not to, I told him! And then he made fun of you…" his words trailed off, but his eyes still held an almost pleading expression. Shay didn't ask who 'he' was, but reached out and took Arno's hand, which made him first smile and then wince. "Ow."

"You shouldn't hit people," Shay scolded him gently. "Don't get into fights, Arno."

"Why not?"

"Because you end up here, looking like this," Shay said, gesturing to the whole of Arno's bruised and battered body. "You're lucky you weren't more injured!"

"You should see the other guy," Arno mumbled.

"That doesn't make me feel any better," Shay said, and Arno made a little whining noise.

"You're mad at me?"

"Yes," Shay said, but kept his voice soft anyway. "Getting into fights at school is a _stupid_ thing to do, Arno."

"Don't be mad…"

"Then don't be stupid."

Arno squeezed his eyes tight shut, like he was trying to block out some painful. Or maybe just actual pain- he clearly had enough reason for that, and Shay wasn't looking forward to hearing the full medical details of his injuries.

"Still love me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good," Arno whispered. He stirred uneasily for a few seconds, and then dropped back into dreamland. And Shay did not leave his side.

-/-

Hope hummed to herself as she worked. It had been a long day, and it was not yet over, but work was easier when Hope was doing things she enjoyed, and it had been a long time since she was able to indulge in this particular interest.

She'd assembled a lab in an out of the way corner of the homestead as quickly as possible, and while the workspace was not as well equipped as the one she'd had in her own world, it was good enough. Besides, there was always the addition of potions and enchantments to investigate, something she had been really looking forward to.

The subject, a man that looked to be in his early forties, already well on his way to balding, was not someone that would be missed soon. Abbas Sofian was not supposed to be there at all, had not told anyone he was visiting his old school, and was quite frankly an unpleasant human being. Hope doubted anyone would go looking for him soon, and they certainly wouldn't think to look here.

She turned toward his unconscious body, scalpel in hand, and smiled as she made the first incision. Oh, yes, but she had _missed_ this.

 **-/-**

 **Writing serial killer Hope makes me feel all dirty inside, uck.**


	30. Chapter 30

Shay ran into Elise in the hospital cafeteria, and after a brief hesitation sat down across from her. "Pizza and a brownie," he said. "Why is it so hard to find something healthy to eat in a hospital?"

"They probably want more customers," she joked. But her eyes were far away and she sounded distracted. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see Arno."

"I told you not to."

"Well, staying home was never really an option." She nodded but didn't say anything, and Shay found himself feeling oddly obligated to keep the conversation going. "So," he said. "Did you see Arno yet?"

"I did," Elise said. "He's… kind of out of it, isn't he?"

"Pain meds," Shay pointed out.

"Still." Elise went quiet again, playing with her food. She hadn't eaten much, Shay noticed.

"What did he say to you?"

She was a long time in answering, and then eventually said, "I expected him to tell me he loves me," she admitted. "I've been expecting it for a long time, and when I saw the way he looked at me when I came in I thought- well, this is it, he's going to say it and it's going to be out in the open, and I won't be able to pretend I don't know anymore."

"But?"

"He just looked at me, and said he was happy I was there."

"So what's the problem?" Shay asked. "I mean-" and he couldn't entirely hide his disapproval. "You said you weren't interested in him."

Elise shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and pushed away the tray of barely eaten food. "I've been thinking about it," she said. "Like you asked me to."

"And?"

"No one smiles at me like that but Arno," Elise said. "And I don't think I _want_ anyone else to."

"That sounds like a good sign," Shay said.

"Or a bad one," Elise argued. "I don't think I want to fall in love."

"With Arno?" Shay prompted. "Or with anyone?"

"With- with anyone, I guess."

Shay waited, watching her. She looked like she was bursting to say something- she must have been, or else why would she be talking to him of all people?- but he had absolutely no idea what was going on in this conversation. Better for her to direct it where she wanted.

Sure enough, Elise only lasted about fifteen seconds before the words came bursting out from her. "It's just that it never lasts, you know? How many couples actually stay together more than a few years? My parents were fighting even before my mother died. Arno's parents split up as soon as he was born. I don't want to end up like that, it's expensive and exhausting."

"That's only two examples," Shay argued. "There are billions of couples in the world."

"You want more?" Elise asked. "Fine, what about Leonardo and Ezio?"

"What about them?" Shay asked, and for a second his confusion was enough to derail Elise's rant.

"Right," she muttered. "That was while you were away. They tried it out for a while, but they didn't really work in the long run. I don't know what happened, but-" and here she seemed to rally, getting back to her main point. "But the _point_ is that they're clearly not together anymore! Or another example, from when you were gone, there was this girl Desmond dated for three or four years. Her name was Lucy, everyone thought they were going to make it all the way, and then she turned out to be a complete psycho. And I think someone ended up getting stabbed and the police came and now Desmond has a restraining order on her."

"How did I not hear about any of this?"

"Or," Elise pressed on, refusing to be distracted a second time. "There's you! What exactly happened with your girlfriend that made her want you to suffer so much? She is literally trying to steal your humanity, what even happened there?"

"It's complicated," Shay said. He debated telling her everything for a second, because technically the Hope she was thinking of was not the one he had been, and was still, in love with. But if he told her, she would inevitably tell Arno, and Shay didn't want to worry him. Not until it was all over and behind them, anyway.

"Yea, well, isn't it always?" Elise sagged back in her chair, looking utterly defeated. "So you see? Falling in love isn't worth it, because it only ever makes you hurt."

"Tis better to have loved and lost-"

"Don't quote Tennyson," Elise interrupted. "I get enough of him in AP English."

"Fine," Shay said. "Then let me give you a little bit of advice of my own. One hundred percent original Shay Cormac patented advice."

"What?"

"You wouldn't be so worried about this if you weren't half in love with him already," Shay said. "And you wouldn't be trying to talk yourself out of it if you hadn't already tried to stop what you're feeling yourself. You can't help what you feel when you fall in love, Elise, and you shouldn't try. There are so many horrible emotions in the world that are hard to avoid. Anger, fear, sorrow, loneliness- with all those other horrible things to feel, why would you waste your time trying not to be in love?"

-/-

Arno was to be confined to the hospital for the rest of the week, at least, but Shay had people to see and places to go. He would have skipped work if it hadn't been his first day back, but as it was, he had a team waiting to meet him and frankly he didn't want to disappoint Haytham. The man had gone out of his way to make things easier for Shay from the beginning, which was far more than Shay deserved.

So he left the hospital, reluctantly, and only after extracting a promise from Elise to call him the second something happened, and went to work. He arrived just in time for the planned meeting with his new team, but by the time he was eventually passed through security (Gist, as promised, had only been there for a single day, and the regular guy was not nearly as good at his job), he was officially late.

The meeting took place in Haytham's office, which proved too cramped for the group of six- Shay, Haytham, and four others that Shay assumed must be the team Haytham had newly acquired for him. He looked them over while they were busy looking at him, slightly uncertain that this was the best team possible. The first problem was Altair. Although Shay was of course grateful that Altair had been the group of people to come with Arno and bring Shay back, he… Well. Quite honestly, Altair was almost definitely going to tell Desmond everything that happened. And now that Altair and Desmond had moved into a new place with Kadar and Malik, it was only a matter of time until all _four_ of them knew, and Kadar would of course tell Arno everything, and Shay really did not want Arno to know everything.

The second problem was Connor. Shay had ended up getting to know him fairly well during everything that had happened, and while he definitely thought Connor was a decent person, he wasn't sure how much Connor's field of expertise would come into play here. The guy was an expert on plants used in potion making, not on other worlds. The other two people in the room were women, and Shay hadn't seen either of them before. He turned to look at Haytham. "Sir," he said. "Are you absolutely sure this is the best group of people?"

"Well, that's nice," one of the women objected.

"I'm sure," Haytham said. "They're all intelligent people, good at their jobs, and most importantly they are all willing to work with you."

"So basically no one else you asked said yes."

"Shay," Haytham said sharply, and Shay sighed. He didn't know what he'd expected, really. How many people would be willing to work with someone like him?

"Sorry," he said. "It's been a long day."

"Alright," Haytham said. "Now I know you're familiar with Connor and Altair." Shay nodded, to show that he was still a part of the conversation. "And these two are Maria Thorpe and Aveline de Grandpre."

He waved, felt like an idiot when neither of the woman returned the gesture, and let his hand drop.

"I'll let you take things from here, Shay," Haytham said. "I've prepared a workspace for you on the second floor."

"Thank you," Shay said, with some relief. He was still getting back into the hang of walking, and climbing more than a single flight at a time was turning out to be difficult. Then he turned to the other four. None of them, to his mind, looked particularly happy to be working with him. "So," he said. "I guess we should go."

The walk downstairs was by far one of the most awkward experiences of Shay's life. He kept wondering how the others were looking at him, what they were expecting of him, what _he_ was expecting of _them-_

"You should know that we all volunteered," one of the woman said cheerfully, when they were about halfway down the stairs. Shay glanced over his shoulder and saw Aveline smiling at him.

"You volunteered?" he repeated. "Why?"

"Because Hope is in the wrong here," Altair said simply. "And- honestly, I feel more comfortable working with you than any of the other people here."

"I don't know if I'll be able to help you at all," Connor said, so hesitantly that Shay felt slightly ashamed of himself for thinking exactly the same thing. "But I would like to try."

"And I just think this whole thing sounds interesting," Aveline said cheerfully. "Alternate universes? That's something I could be interested in."

"And what about you?" Shay prompted, when Maria said nothing.

Aveline grinned, with just a hint of sharpness. "She just thought Altair was attractive, actually-"

"I will push you down these stairs," Maria said in a voice of absolute calm. She did not look at any of them. Shay glanced over at Altair, and grinned a little himself when he saw the bright red suddenly painting his face.

"Well," he said, to change the subject more than anything. "If you're all going to work with me on this, I need you to promise that you'll keep everything you learn a secret. Especially what I'm going to tell you today." He looked especially at Altair. "That includes your brother, if you can manage it."

"I can," Altair said. "If it's important."

Shay nodded, but didn't say anything until they had made it into their new lab, freshly cleaned and ready for whatever purposes they would need to put it to. Then he took a deep breath, and started to explain everything he knew, about both Hopes and why it was so important to get them switched. In the end, no one said anything for a while. Then Aveline nodded, once, and said, "Let's get to work."

-/-

Altair did not like what Shay had to say about the two different versions of Hope. He liked even less that Shay had asked them not to say anything. To anyone. Altair had never been a father, or even a father like figure, to anyone. Well, except Malik, possibly, and Malik didn't count, because he had apparently come out of the womb with more general common sense than most people ever had.

But the point was that even with his general lack of experience with kids, Altair could tell that hiding the truth from Arno could only end in trouble. Especially because Arno wasn't exactly a child anymore. An obnoxious teenager, yes, because all teenagers were obnoxious to some extent. But he'd grown up better than most kids these days did, because he'd had to grow up faster. Altair was pretty sure Arno would be able to handle what Shay was hiding from him.

Still, it wasn't exactly his choice, and Altair had only been in this job for a couple of weeks. He couldn't afford to start arguing with people and stirring up bad feelings for at least another few months. So like all the others, he just went along with what Shay wanted, and got to work.

None of them had any idea what to do with Shay, and that apparently included Shay himself. But they had to start somewhere, so Maria suggested they start with observations of what was going on with Shay's body while his mind was visiting other worlds. "You'll be completely in control the entire time, and we won't do what your girlfriend did to you. Just observe."

"She's not my girlfriend," Shay complained. "Haven't you been listening?"

"Fine," Maria said. "We won't do what the psychotic murderer has been doing to you for the past decade, all right?"

"We need some data to start with," Aveline said. "And you trusted us enough to tell us what was going on with Hope. Will you trust us with this?"

Shay nodded. "Yes."

So they got to work. They had to wait for Shay to calm down and drop off before he could get to another world, because the only other way they knew of to get him travelling was to induce a coma, and no one wanted that. They started collecting every piece of data they could, not wanting to have to do this again later, and Altair tried to contribute as much as he could.

Except that it was hard, because he was a tiny bit distracted by something else. He kept thinking of what Aveline had said about Maria only asking to be on the team because she was interested in him. That didn't make sense, did it? Nobody did things like that. Especially not for him. But, ah- well, if Maria _was_ interested in him… well, she wasn't exactly unattractive herself…

They were just finishing up, with Aveline waking Shay, when the door opened and Malik, of all people came inside. "No," Altair said, moving to cut him off. "No, Malik, you can't be here. You have to-"

"First of all," Malik said. "This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you decided you're apparently too good to work with me now."

"That wasn't my _choice_ , Malik-"

"Because I only came to visit because I have important news."

"Who got hurt this time?" Shay interrupted.

"What? No one. But Abbas is dead." Malik turned, and looked at Altair. "That classmate you used to have, that you told me about-"

"Yes," Altair said. "He was unpleasant, but I haven't seen him since we were in school together. Why did you have to rush all the way over here and tell me?"

"Because…" And Malik looked so unnerved, that for a second, Altair thought he might have come there for _comfort_. "He was killed. Very, um- disturbingly. Someone ripped him apart while he was still alive, pulled out his organs and… and did things."

"Hope," Shay whispered.

But Altair was thinking about Abbas, who was a horrible man, and Hope, who was a horrible woman. He was thinking about how no one, including Abbas, deserved the kind of things Hope was apparently capable of. He looked around at the others in the room, the team he had just joined, the people he was just barely starting to trust. And thought about how they were the only ones that knew enough to stop her.

And so that was exactly what they would have to do.

-/-

"So…"

It was late and Arno was pretty sure he wasn't supposed to be out of bed. But he was bored stiff, and achy because his pain meds had run out. So, with nothing else to do, Arno went to wander the halls, and eventually his traitorous feet took him to Charles Dorian's room.

Not his father. His father was dead in another universe, so the guy here was just his body with some other guy's brain stuck inside. But geeze, Arno was bored, so he settled himself in the visitor's chair in front of his father's bed and, after a little bit of shivering, helped himself to the extra blanket at the end of his father's bed. He felt slightly silly, with the blanket wrapped around him like a cloak, and maybe it would have been a good idea to get his own clothes back before coming here.

Too late now, of course, because Arno knew that if he walked all the way back to his room, he wouldn't want to come back again. So he sat there, wrapped up like a burrito, looking at his father's face and wondering whose brain was going to wake up inside it.

Shay had given him a few more details after Arno pressed him, before he left for work. So he had a vague idea of what the guy was like his father had swapped places with. He knew this other Charles Dorian was old, like lived centuries ago old instead of like octogenarian old, but still. And he was French—they might not even be able to understand each other. Arno had taken French in school, and he'd gone with Elise and her family a few time to visit her grandparents in Versailles, but maybe that wouldn't be enough.

The weird thing was, Shay had also told him that Arno, in that other world, had been born after they switched places. So that meant his father had… what, gone to another world and fathered the same son over again? Did that make Arno his own half brother, technically? He spared a second to wonder which one of them was their father's favorite, but down that road lay madness, so he stopped. The point of that was that this version of Charles hadn't met either version of Arno. And Arno hadn't had a perfect relationship with his father, but it would be weird to know that when this man woke up, he wouldn't even recognize Arno.

When he… when he woke… up…

Arno found his eyes drawn to the machines next to the bed, the ones monitoring heartbeat and- well, frankly Arno had no idea what the rest of the machines were there for, all he knew was that they were changing. The steady beeping and hums that had filled the room since Arno woke up were speeding up, and Charles-

His eyes opened, slowly, and for a second he and Arno stared at one another in absolute silence. Then Charles smiled. "Arno," he said. "You're so- you grew up."

"What?" Arno was on his feet, suddenly, blanket still wrapped around him as if it were security. "No, this isn't right."

"Son…"

"I'm not your son!" Arno protested. "You're not my father, my father is- he's dead in another universe!" He took a deep breath, abruptly unnerved. "Stop it, stop _pretending_ to be him!"

And he took off running before all this could get any worse. Back in his own room, he burrowed under his own blankets and called Shay. His voice on the other end of the cell phone was tired and far away, but as Arno poured out everything to him, Shay seemed to wake up.

"Arno," he said at the end of it all. "Arno, calm down."

"But he thinks he's my dad," Arno protested. "And he's not! He's not, right? I mean, you didn't get things mixed up, or anything? This guy definitely isn't my dad, right, because I sort of yelled at him that he wasn't."

"Listen," Shay said, and he was so calm that Arno felt himself calming as well. "He's not your father. I spoke to your father in that other world, and he seemed pretty confident that the me from that universe was about to kill him."

"You told me that already."

"So he's probably dead. Even if he's alive, he's alive in _that_ world, not ours. The man in the hospital that spoke to you today is Charles Dorian from that other world, in your father's body."

"Then why does he know who I am, and why does he think he belongs here?"

"Because he just woke up in a strange world," Shay said softly. "Right now, your father's memories are pouring into his head, and he doesn't have any reason to question them. So he's not your father, but he believes he is."

"When will he stop thinking that?"

"I don't know," Shay said. "Be patient. And be kind. Whatever the truth is, from his point of view he just woke up in a hospital bed, saw his son looking much older than the last time he saw him, and then got shouted at. How do you think that makes him feel?"

"Bad," Arno whispered. "I'll try and be better. But- he'll remember eventually, right?"

"I hope so," Shay said.

"Yea. Me too." Arno swallowed. "Can you come by the hospital tomorrow? After work?"

"I'll be there," Shay promised. And it was that promise that lent Arno the calm he needed to eventually, several hours later, drop off too sleep.


	31. Chapter 31

**[Alternate Universe #44,233]**

"Tell me about your world," Shay said to Hope.

"Well-" and she smiled at him because she knew it was annoying, and frankly she was bored. Visits from Shay, even the lawyer Shay from this world, were the only interesting thing in her life right now. "The Shay there is nicer. He's not even a lawyer, so that helps."

She expected Shay to get annoyed- her Shay certainly would have- but this one only shrugged. Maybe he'd just heard enough lawyer jokes by this point that he'd become immune to them. "So what does he do?"

"Now?" she shrugged. "I don't know. I think the Hope that's supposed to be here is kind of messing up his life at the moment."

"Alright. Then what did he do before?"

"Research," she said, after considering how much to tell him. Just because they were the same person, that didn't mean she had to trust both versions. This Shay was not her Shay, and Hope's own counterpart had proven pretty well that the same person could have very different moral codes across the universes.

"What kind of research?"

"He worked for me."

"So medical research?"

Hope shook her head. "I wasn't a doctor in that world."

"I'm starting to feel like you're being intentionally evasive," Shay said. "What was this world like?"

She sighed and shrugged. Why shouldn't she tell Shay everything, anyway? It's not like anyone else will believe him. "In that world, we worked at a school."

"Research," Shay repeats. "At a school. So some kind of college?"

"No. It's a private school, for students that want an emphasis on magic in their education. It's the best in the country, in a lot of ways. There were some of us that just spent our whole lives there. We grew up as students, and then we stayed on to teach or do research. Shay and I did that. We loved, uh-" she stopped, oddly hesitant to tell this Shay that she and the other Shay had been in love. "We loved the work."

"And also, you were together." Shay didn't say it like a question, and Hope shot him a look.

"Is it that obvious?"

"He- um- how do I refer to another version of myself?"

"There's basically no good way to do it."

"Alright. Well, that other guy, he's started writing me all these notes every time he's here, even though I get the point, already, I believe he exists, and if you happen to see him at some point, I would really appreciate you telling him."

"I will," Hope said. "If I can. But anyway, you were saying?"

"I was saying I know he cares about you. A lot."

Hope nodded and tried not to smile at how reassuring it was to hear that. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know this must be extremely uncomfortable for you."

"And I'm sure it must be even worse for you. I mean, I'm not the one about to be executed as a serial killer."

"Ouch," Hope said. "Blunt."

"But true," Shay said. "And lucky for you, this is my job. I don't know you, and I don't care about you the same way that he does. But the woman that actually committed the crimes you're imprisoned for is a monster. I want her to pay for her crimes as much as I want to see you go free."

"How are you going to manage that?" Hope asked. "If you get me out of execution, she can't be tried again for the same crime if she comes back."

"So I don't need to get you off," Shay said. "All I need to do is delay long enough for the evil version of you to come back. And she will- I don't know exactly how this is going to work, this whole weird teamwork thing with another version of myself. But it will work. I promise."

-/-

Arno was intensely grateful when Elise sat down next to him on the front steps of the house, and took his hand without saying a word. In fact, she let the silence between them stretch out until Arno was ready to say something.

"It's been two weeks," Arno said at last.

"I know," Elise said quietly.

"It's not really him," Arno went on. "He just thinks he's my dad."

"But how… I mean, Arno, how can you be sure he's not your dad? He's been out of it as long as Shay has, and look how different he is. I know Shay said he saw your dad in one of his other worlds, but how do we know he didn't find his way back? Maybe the guy that woke up in the hospital really is your dad."

"He's not," Arno said.

"Okay, sure. But how do you know?"

"I've been talking to Shay," Arno says. "A lot, these last couple weeks. I keep asking him questions about the world where he saw my real dad. It's kind of hard, because I guess he wasn't feeling too sane at that point. He gets all shifty when he starts talking about it, and he keeps trying to change the subject. And sometimes he tells me things that contradict each other."

"So maybe he's remembering it all wrong," Elise suggested. "Even seeing your dad in the first place."

"No," Arno said. "He's always certain about that much, at least. And one other thing- he always says dad recognized him just by looking. Even though he was in the body of that world's Shay, looked just like him and everything. And I get it when I look at this guy here."

"So you can just look at him, and tell he's not actually your dad?" Elise asks.

"When he comes by, look at his eyes," Arno says. "His eyes are, um… they just look different, you know? They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and maybe that's stupid but maybe it's also true. His soul doesn't belong in this world, and his eyes don't look like they do either." He squeezes her hand. "He's not my dad, 'Lise. And I mean, I knew he wouldn't be, but I wasn't expecting him to think he was. That's the worst part. I thought he would wake up and know he was the wrong version of himself in the wrong world. I could have lived with that, but he thinks he's my dad, Elise!"

"I know."

"You believe me?"

"I'm still not one hundred percent convinced," Elise said. "But-"

Arno sighed and let his hand slip out of hers. "Fine," he said. "I also did the psychic thing a couple times, okay?"

"Oh! Well, then, sure. I believe you now. Why didn't you tell me you'd had a vision at the beginning?"

"I was sort of hoping you would just believe me."

"Can we just start this conversation over?" Elise asked. "I mean, this is goodbye. It's going to be so weird coming home to just dad."

"Shay's still going to be here," Arno pointed out.

"Yea, but not for long once you're gone." She sighed. "Why is your da- your fake dad making you move out?"

"He told me he doesn't trust your dad or Shay," Arno muttered. "I dunno why, maybe something from his world." He kicked at the ground with the toe of his foot. "So we're moving. And hopefully soon enough I'll turn eighteen, or he'll remember his real life."

"I hope so," Elise agreed. Then she pointed toward the end of the road. "That's Ezio's car, right?"

"Yea. He still trusts Ezio, for some reason." Quite a few people had come to visit Charles in the hospital- or to visit Arno, and then just gone to his Charles while they happened to be in the area- and Arno had no idea why this version of Charles trusted some of them but not others. He liked Ezio, and Altair, for example. Connor too, but very definitely not Haytham. There didn't seem to be any pattern to who he liked, but Arno thought it might have something to do with who he was in the universe he had originally come from.

And anyway, he still liked Arno. So much that it made Arno uncomfortable, because he didn't want some guy from another world thinking he was his dad, and hugging him, and- and talking, all the time, about the future, about how things were going to get better, about how they could be a real family again. Apologizing for the mistakes he'd made in the past.

"I don't want to go," Arno said to Elise, standing up abruptly because he was suddenly scared. "Not with him!"

Elise stood after him, pulling at his arm until he was close enough for her to hug. For a second, he thought he saw hesitation in her face, like she was trying to decide if she should do more. Then she stepped back. "Go, Arno," she told him, as the car parked in the driveway. "You're strong. And you can get through this."

"Okay." His bags were already sitting at his feet, so that all he had to do was bend down and pick them up. "I'll… see you at school I guess."

"Definitely," Elise promised, and she let him go.

-/-

Malik cornered Altair on Sunday night, just when Altair was starting to wonder when it would happen.

"No," he said.

"I haven't even asked yet," Malik said, pointing at the kitchen table.

"It doesn't change my answer," Altair said. "This isn't up for debate, and it doesn't matter how much you ask or how persuasive you are. No."

"We might not even be talking about the same thing," Malik pointed out. "You're going to feel very stupid later if you keep telling me no and it turns out I wanted to ask you something else.

"Fine." Altair turned a chair around and sat leaning against the back of it. "Ask your question. Shoot."

"Can I-"

"No."

Altair beamed at the way Malik scowled at him. After over a decade's worth of putting up with and occasionally even liking him, Altair was proud of how quickly he could get under the kid's skin.

Malik's lips went very thin in annoyance, and without another word he turned and marched upstairs. Altair was just starting to think about leaving when he heard a bump from the bedroom upstairs and Desmond's voice like a squawk in his mind.

 _"Altair!"_

 _"What?"_

 _"Why is Malik staring at me?"_

"Malik!" Altair shouted through the floor. "Quit bugging my brother!"

There were a few more thumps, and then then Malik was pushing Desmond into the chair next to Altair. "Right," Malik said. "Are we all ready to listen?"

"What are we listening to?" Desmond demanded. "I don't know what's going on."

"You don't really have to listen," Malik told him. "I just don't think Altair will be as quick to dismiss me when I have his brother hostage."

"I'm not your hostage," Desmond said.

"Do you want to try leaving?"

A long silence, then Desmond crossed his arms and looked at the floor. "No," he muttered.

 _"Does he scare you that much?"_

 _"Do you see the way he's looking at me?"_

Malik smiled like he knew what they were thinking at each other, and sat down across from the two of them, in his usual chair, next to the place where Kadar sat at meals. "Alright," he said. "Altair, now that you're taking me seriously, do you want to hear my question?"

"Not really."

"But you will anyway?"

"Fine," Altair sighed. "Tell me."

"Can I work with you?" Malik asked. Blunt as ever, Altair noticed, although the elaborate song and dance before they managed to get this far might have something to do with his cutting straight to the chase. Altair made a show of hesitating and pretending to think about it before answering.

"No."

"Come on," Malik complained, leaning forward with both forearms against the table. "I've worked with you since before most kids were even able to read. You know me, you know I do good work. I want in on whatever it is."

"I couldn't even if I wanted to."

"So you're saying that you can't, not that you won't."

"I'm saying- both, I guess?" He squinted at Malik in some confusion. "I think?"

"Then let's start with won't. Besides the fact that you're still pretending not to like me, there's no real reason you won't bring me in."

Desmond was laughing at Altair inside his head. Altair shot him a glare that only made the laughter louder.

"Which means we move onto why you think you can't," Malik continued. "Why?"

"This isn't the homestead," Altair told him. "This is a new place, where no one knows me and I don't know them. I can't just ask for more people to be brought in."

"You can absolutely ask," Malik said calmly. "If they say no, then fair enough, it's not your fault. I'll let it go."

Yea, right. Sure he would, Altair thought. More likely he'd just go bother Haytham or Shay.

"Come on, Altair," Desmond said. "Just ask. How much is it going to hurt?"

"You're on his side?"

"At this moment, yes." Desmond looked at Malik. "Can I go now?"

Altair mouthed traitor at Desmond so Malik would see it, as his brother got up and beat a hasty retreat. When they were alone again, Malik looked pleadingly back at Altair. "Just ask?" he said softly. "I miss learning magic. Regular high school is... hard."

Altair looked at him, and nodded. "I can't make promises. But I'll ask."

Malik looked at him almost pityingly, and nodded too. "I already asked Shay," he said. "He said it was okay as long as I got your permission."

"Sneaky," Altair said.

"Well. You might not have said yes if you actually thought it could happen."

They both looked up as Kadar came clattering down the stairs, pulling on a jacket as he ran. "Running late!" he shouted. "Hi, bye, gotta go!"

"Where are you going?" Malik called after him, and Kadar had to slow down enough while putting on his shoes that he could actually answer.

"Arno and Elise are about to get together," he said cheerfully. "They just don't know it yet, and it's going to be awesome."

Altair and Malik shared a look that wondered in silence how exactly that was going to work, then Malik turned back to his brother. "Have fun," he said. "Be home by nine."

"Yea, yea," Kadar muttered, already halfway out the door. "See you!"

-/-

Arno agreed to meet with Jacob primarily because he felt bad. It wasn't his fault, really, that Bellec had decided to punch the kid's lights out, but Arno felt a little bad anyway. After all, Bellec had only decided to pick a fight because Jacob had accidentally hit Arno. So when Kadar had casually mentioned that Jacob wanted to see him for some reason, Arno decided he might as well. If nothing else, at least it got him out of the house and away from his not-dad that thought he was his dad. Because that whole situation was going well, of course.

They met up for food, because… well, food. It was a cheap place that did decent pizza, and because it was near the school, the place was always full of teenagers just hanging out. Jacob was already there when Arno walked in, and the freshman grinned at him. "You look like shit," he said cheerfully.

"You- what?" Arno realized he was staring. "What kind of person says something like that?"

"Bellec kind of ripped you a new one though, didn't he?"

"Yea, well you should see him," Arno grumbled. "He looks way worse than I do."

"I did see him," Jacob said. "I mean, I saw the fight. Like, twenty different times after half the school uploaded videos onto youtube."

"Great," Arno grumbled. "I'm internet famous, just what I always wanted."

"Not too famous," Jacob reassures him. "But anyway, it's just- my point is, thank you for fighting over me. I would rather it had been two hot girls, but I'll take what I can get."

"It wasn't all about you," Arno said. "Bellec started insulting my… friend. Shay. And he's been through enough already."

"He's the one on trial, right?" Jacob asked.

"You know about that?"

"It's all over school," Jacob said. "Hey, do you get to talk in court or anything?"

"I don't know," Arno said. "The lawyer's doing a bunch of interviews in his office next month, so he can kind of get the full story, and decide who needs to give testimony in the trial. It's all kind of a nightmare, honestly."

Jacob, thankfully, didn't probe farther, and they set to eating pizza. Then, in a voice that was too casual to actually be casual, he said, "So my sister's coming by with a friend. That's okay, isn't it?"

"You have a sister?"

"A twin." Jacob grinned at him, and something about the quality of that smile made Arno suddenly suspicious.

"You're not trying to set me up, are you?"

"I think they are," a familiar voice said from just behind Arno. "But not with you and Evie."

Arno squeaked.

Jacob started laughing at him, at least until a girl came around the other side of the table and hit him on the back of the head. "Stop it," she said. "How old are you?"

Arno didn't hear Jacob's reply. He was too busy craning his head around to look at Elise, who look uncharacteristically nervous. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," Arno echoed.

"Hey," Jacob called from the other side of the table. "Evie and me are going to leave you two alone, okay?" He got up and was still grinning at Arno as his sister dragged him away. "And for the record, this makes us totally even for you hitting Bellec for me."

"But-"

Too late, they were gone, laughing together as they retreated to the other side of the restaurant.

"That son of a bitch," Elise said casually.

"Who, Jacob?"

"No." She pointed toward the table where the twins were now sitting, along with someone else that looked very familiar. "Looks like Kadar put them up to this."

"We can just… pretend we don't know what they're doing," Arno said softly. "There's nothing wrong with a couple of old friends having pizza together, right?"

"Here."

Their conversation was interrupted by a surly looking waitress, who slammed a vase of slightly sad looking flowers onto the table between them. "Your friends paid me to bring this over."

"Oh my God," Arno whispered, sinking down in his seat. He was pretty sure everyone in the restaurant was staring at them now. "I'm going to kill Kadar."

Elise didn't say anything for a long while, but Arno hardly noticed. He wasn't saying anything either, because he was too busy thinking about how Elise was going to tell him _no_ now, and then he would have to stop pretending that there was the faintest chance she was ever going to say _yes_.

"We could probably leave now," Arno muttered at last. "It's been long enough."

"Or we could stay," Elise said quietly.

"I don't really want to," Arno said. "I get enough awkward at home, I'm not really in the mood for any more right now."

He got up, threw some money on the table, and was halfway out the door before he realized Elise was following him. He stopped with his back against the wall next to the door and looked at here.

"Elise, look, I really don't want to talk about this right now. I know- I mean you're not stupid, okay? I know that you know that I th- I think you're pretty much the coolest girl I've ever met, and you're really pretty, and I l- I like you a lot." He was red as a tomato and stammering so much he was surprised Elise could still understand him. "But tonight is already horrible enough without actually hearing you say no, so can we just go home and never, ever talk about this again?"

She looked at him. "I wasn't going to say no."

"You- but you weren't going to say yes, were you?"

She nodded at him, and Arno stared at her like the whole world had just stopped making sense. "Why?" he demanded.

"Shay kind of talked me into thinking about it," Elise admitted. "And then you… you're you. And when I started thinking about it…" She was nervous too, Arno suddenly realized, twisting her fingers together and waiting for him to say something. But he had no idea what to say, so he peeked a little. Not far into the future, just far enough to know what he was supposed to tell her.

"What did you see?" Elise asked, as soon as he looked. Because of course she knew what he looked like when he was having a vision. She'd known him since they were six, she knew him better than almost anyone else in the world.

He took a deep breath, and did what he'd seen himself do in the vision. Elise, for a second, seemed surprised to find Arno kissing her, but then it felt like she was melting in his arms. They could have been standing on a Caribbean island, or under a cascade of fireworks, in front of a waterfall, or- Arno gave up trying to think of romantic clichés and just focused on how perfect this moment was, even if they were standing in front of a wall that smelled like pizza.

"I like that vision," Elise said at last, when she could speak again. "You should… you should try and have it more often."


	32. Chapter 32

**I'm not sure the interviews worked out the way I wanted them to, but I'm not going to go back and redo them now. It's an experiment.**

OCTOBER 27

CASE OF HOPE JENSEN VS SHAY CORMAC

UNOFFICIAL DEPOSITION OF LIAM O'BRIEN

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS 10:32 AM:

O'Brien: So what's the point of this, exactly?

Hastings: I'm just trying to get a full picture of what happened between Shay and this woman that's suing him.

O'Brien: Hope.

Hastings: Hope, yes. State your full name for the record, please?

O'Brien: Liam O'Brien. I thought you knew that already?

Hastings: It's just for the record, like I said.

O'Brien: But-

Hastings: [loudly] So can you tell me anything at all about Hope?

O'Brien: Why ask me? Not that I don't want to help Shay, but… I mean, I don't think that this is going to help.

Hastings: Neither do I, that's why I have to ask these questions.

O'Brien: But there have to be other people that know more about it all than I do. Why aren't you interviewing them?

Hastings: I will. I'm asking everyone I could think of, but if you remember you did agree to this. You were actually the first to agree, which is why you're the first one in here. So will you please just stop your whining and tell me about their relationship? Anything at all about what Hope is like.

O'Brien: I can tell you she didn't used to be like this.

Hastings: How long have you known her, exactly?

O'Brien: Christ, I don't know. Years. Me and her and Shay, we were all friends when we were kids. We went to school together, we graduated together, we went to work together. And then Shay had his accident.

Hastings: The one that put all those universes in his head.

O'Brien: No, the other horrible accident. Come on, I know Shay has the worst luck in the world, but… well yea. He just had the one life destroying accident.

Hastings: Is the sarcasm-

O'Brien: Necessary, yes. I don't like lawyers.

Hastings: You would be surprised how often I hear that. Tell me more about the accident. Were the effects immediate?

O'Brien: Yes. I mean- I wasn't actually there. In the room with him. But Hope was, and she saw everything. And I saw him after that, just talking to himself, shouting things, acting… honestly, back then, he might have been a little bit crazy.

Hastings: So you're saying Hope is right? That Shay is actually dangerous?

O'Brien: No! That's not at all what I'm saying. Because Shay got better. He was, I swear he was. And he still is. He is the same Shay I knew growing up, the same Shay I used to get into trouble with, the same Shay that I always trusted to have my back.

Hastings: I heard there was a time when you didn't trust him. After he left Davenport, you employed people to watch him, and refused all contact

O'Brien: Well, I was wrong. Is that what you want to hear? I got to know Shay again after that. I know him now, and I know I was wrong. I mean, as long as this interview is unofficial, I don't want it going on record that I admitted I was wrong about anything.

Hastings: It's unofficial, yes.

O'Brien: But yea. I thought the accident had changed Shay, but really it changed everyone around him. We didn't know how to deal with him. I sort of course corrected a while ago, but Hope just keeps digging herself in deeper.

Hastings: Alright, then. I think I'm getting a pretty good idea of where she's coming from.

O'Brien: So I can go now?

Hastings: In a minute. I have one more question left.

O'Brien: Shoot.

Hastings: In your opinion, does Shay deserve to be human?

O'Brien: In my opinion, he deserves it more than Hope.

-/-

OCTOBER 28

CASE OF HOPE JENSEN VS SHAY CORMAC

UNOFFICIAL DEPOSITION OF CONNOR KENWAY

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS 5:00 PM:

Hastings: Can you start by stating your full name for the record, please?

Kenway: Connor.

Hastings: Last name too.

Kenway: [Reluctantly] Kenway.

Hastings: [Laughing] Not a fan of the name?

Kenway: I wanted to keep my mother's name when I moved in with my dad, legally it didn't work out, and here we are. It all worked out, I like my dad fine, I just don't always appreciate the name. That's the full story. Can we move on now?

Hastings: Uh- sure. So you met Shay when, exactly?

Kenway: A few months back. Hope asked me for help taking him away from Davenport, and at the time I didn't realize there was anything wrong.

Hastings: But you did, eventually?

Kenway: Yes.

[Pause]

Hastings: Can you elaborate on that? Something must have happened to actually make you change your mind, so what was it?

Kenway: Shay. We had to wake him up for a while to move him, and he was…

Hastings: Go on.

Kenway: It's hard, alright? I'm trying. [Pause] I… I think the first time I suspected something was wrong was when we were sewing him up. He had these marks all over his body from where Hope had put in life support. And I thought… no one with any respect at all for someone's life would do that to him.

Hastings: So you think her methods during the experiments she conducted on Shay were unnecessarily cruel?

Kenway: Yes. Absolutely. But there was more. It was the way he begged for help, maybe. Hope tried to tell me it was all a trick. She said Shay was lying to me. But I couldn't look at him and believe that.

Hastings: So you did what?

Kenway: What any decent human being would. I told her I wasn't helping anymore, and started trying to get him back on his feet.

Hastings: So he needed help?

Kenway: After ten years of lying in one position and being fed through a tube, I'm surprised he could move at all. But we tried.

Hastings: And you followed him back here after the rescue?

Kenway: Well. I didn't want to go back with Hope.

Hastings: Yes, I understand. But you didn't have to come with Shay once he was with friends. You could have left him and gone somewhere else. I understand that you have traveled extensively before now.

Kenway: My father lives in this city.

Hastings: And that's the only reason you came back?

[Pause]

Hastings: Connor.

Kenway: There's something about Shay. You have to understand. He- it's not that he inspires loyalty. And pity isn't exactly the right word either. But he doesn't deserve what he's gotten, and I get the idea that if I ever needed his help, he would give it.

Hastings: That's a strong first impression.

Kenway: Shay is strong. A weak man would have gone insane from what he saw. I think Shay might be the sanest man I know. [Sound of a chair scraping on the floor]. Can I go now?

Hastings: Sit down, I still have one more question.

Kenway: What?

Hastings: In your opinion, does Shay deserve to be human?

Kenway: I think everyone does, including Shay. And I think that even if Hope wins this trial, she's not going to be able to take Shay's right to be human away. She can do whatever she wants to him, but he will always be stronger than him. And he will win, eventually.

[Pause]

Hastings: Thank you.

OCTOBER 29

CASE OF HOPE JENSEN VS SHAY CORMAC

UNOFFICIAL DEPOSITION OF ARNO DORIAN

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS 3:16 PM:

Dorian: Arno Dorian.

Hastings: What?

Dorian: You were going to ask for my full name, right? For the record, or whatever?

Hastings: Oh, right. You're the psychic one.

Dorian: Yep.

Hastings: And quite frankly a lot more cheerful than most of the people I've had to talk to lately.

Dorian: Sorry. I can be more serious. I know this is important and I want to help Shay.

Hastings: Let's start with that. How did-

Dorian: It's just that… I have a girlfriend. It's kind of a big deal, and I'm… [laughs] honestly, I'm still not completely sure how I lucked out and got her to say yes but, ah- you probably don't care about that.

Hastings: I _am_ trying to save a man here.

Dorian: Yea. But I mean… I told him about Elise. He was really happy for me. And now I'm really happy, and Elise is really-

Hastings: _Please_ stay on topic.

Dorian: Sorry. Really, I mean. I'll try to be better. [deep breath] Okay. Sorry. I'm better now.

Hastings: This is why I don't work with kids.

Dorian: I'm not a kid! I'm seventeen.

Hastings: [sighs] So what can you tell me about Shay?

Dorian: I found him when I was a kid. I… [laughs] I guess I kind of threw a lot of my problems on him. I didn't know anything about being psychic, and I told him things about his future that I'm sure must have hurt him. I wanted a father, and mine had other things to worry about. And Shay was the one that was there, the one that made time for me and showed that he cared.

Hastings: So you liked him?

Dorian: He was the best thing that ever happened to me. I mean that. Without him, I would have grown up alone. Pretty much every single person in my life that I care about is someone I met through Shay. Growing up, the most important thing in my life was rescuing him, because he was the one that mattered the most. And devoting your whole childhood to rescuing someone changes who you are. I wouldn't be the person I am today without Shay, and he wasn't even around. He makes people better just by existing, and the world would be a much place if he wasn't around anymore.

Hastings: So-

Dorian: So, yea. To answer the question you haven't got around to asking yet, Shay absolutely deserves to be human. He's the best person I know, he is kind to people that need it, and harsh when they deserve it. He's fiercely loyal to the people around him, and… and I love him. Maybe that doesn't make much difference in a court of law, but it makes a difference to me. Shay's not perfect. No one is. But what he is, is perfectly human. Good and bad.

Hastings: Well- thank you.

Dorian: Sure. Is that it?

Hastings: I actually… that was supposed to be my last question, but I think I have one more.

Dorian: Shoot.

Hastings: Everyone I've talked to so far has had the same opinion on that last question.

Dorian: Well, I hope so. Everyone deserves to be human.

Hastings: That's not what I mean. You all talk about him like he's some kind of superhero. Is he really as good as all that?

Dorian: _Better_. He's Shay.

-/-

OCTOBER 30

CASE OF HOPE JENSEN VS SHAY CORMAC

UNOFFICIAL DEPOSITION OF SHAY CORMAC

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS 12:00 PM:

Cormac: Is this going to take a while? This is- I'm on my lunch break.

Hastings: Shay, come on.

Cormac: What do you mean 'come on'?

Hastings: I'm your lawyer, and you're facing charges that, if you're convicted, will literally translate to a fate worse than death. I'm trying to help you here, and you're giving me lip.

Cormac: I'm giving you _what_?

Hastings: I'm just feeling bloody underappreciated here, that's all.

[Pause]

Cormac: I'm sorry, did something happen that I'm not aware of?

Hastings: [mumbling] My girlfriend is pissed I forgot our anniversary.

Cormac: [laughs]

Hastings: You don't have to laugh like that!

Cormac: [still laughing] I'm sorry, how do you want me to laugh?

Hastings: It's really important, okay? You don't know Rebecca, she's out for my blood-

Cormac: [laughing even louder] Can we pick this up again in a few minutes? I just- [laughs]

Hastings: Oh, for heaven's sake…

TRANSCRIPT RESUMES 12:08 PM:

Hastings: Right.

Cormac: Seriously, though, what do you want to ask about?

Hastings: Well, I suppose I've heard quite a lot about you, honestly.

Cormac: All good things, I hope.

Hastings: Amazingly so. You know, I do this before every big case I work. I talk to the people that know my client the best, over as long a range of time as possible. And normally it goes the exact same way, every time. Everyone starts out very polite, I make a few polite noises, and people open up. People love to talk, you know? That's why therapists and psychiatrists make so much money. All you have to do is sit there and ask some vague questions, and people tell you absolutely everything that's on their mind. They start with the things they think you want to hear, and then they move onto the things they've always wanted to say.

Cormac: So what you're saying is people usually have nasty things to say?

Hastings: Exactly, yes.

Cormac: And what did my friends have to say about me?

Hastings: It's like you said. All good things. It's… it's almost unnatural, really. Your friends really love you, Shay. They're loyal to you in a way most people are lucky to ever see from one person. You, on the other hand, seem to inspire it in everyone around you.

Cormac: Well, everyone but Hope.

Hastings: Yes. That would be the problem, I suppose.

Cormac: What are we going to do about her, anyway? You do have a plan, right?

Hastings: I'm working on it.

Cormac: The trial's in three weeks! And you're still only _working_ on-

Hastings: Calm down. Things will be fine, I promise.

Cormac: But-

Hastings: I just have one more question, and then you can get back to work.

Cormac: Then shoot, I guess.

Hastings: I've been asking the same question to everyone that's been in here over the last few days, but I wasn't really planning to ask you. And then everyone had such interesting answers, that I had to think- well, I want to hear what you'll say. Shay, do you think you deserve to be human?

[Pause]

Hastings: Shay?

Cormac: I hope so. Sometimes I think about what I've done. To Hope… and to Arno's father. It's hard not to wonder, sometimes. In the middle of the night. When I have to go to yet another doctor. I just think- maybe I don't deserve this. Was that the answer you wanted to hear?

Hastings: I… I think you should talk to some of your friends about this. I think you might need to hear their opinions.

Cormac: Really?

Hastings: Really. They're good people. And you're free to go now, by the way.

Cormac: That's all? I expected some harder questions.

Hastings: Don't worry. Those will come. We're going to be practicing everything that needs to be said in court, day in and day out, but for now I just want to know where everything stands. What's really important now is for you to believe you can win. And you don't- but your friends do. They believe you deserve to be human

[Long pause]

Shay: I'm still working on believing in myself. But I know I believe in them.

TRANSCRIPT ENDS 12:35 PM

-/-

"Shay! You have to go trick or treating with us."

Arno's face was red when Elise cornered Shay in his bedroom. "Elise, we don't have to do that this year…"

She waveed him off dismissively. "Don't be stupid. Of course we do, it's our last chance before college. And if I remember right, you cried for _hours_ the Halloween when you were ten because you wanted Shay to take you trick or treating."

"That's not true!" It was absolutely true. "Besides, I had to sneak away from dad just to be here tonight, I don't know if going out again is the best idea right now…"

Elise turned to him, one hand on her hip and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Arno Dorian," she said sternly. "You are my boyfriend, and I am not going to hide that from certain people just because they happen to not like it very much. We're going out, and Shay is coming with."

Arno nodded and gave in immediately. He had found out, over the past couple of weeks, that it was very hard to argue with any sentence Elise started by saying _you are my boyfriend_. Still. "What about costumes?"

"I did tell you we were doing this over a month ago," Elise said.

"I thought you were joking! What-" They both stopped and looked over at Shay as he started to laugh.

"What?" Arno demanded again. " _What,_ Shay?"

"Nothing," Shay said. But he was smiling. "I'm just glad… you're happy."

"He'll be happier if he agrees to go trick or treating," Elise said. "And you'll come, won't you?"

Shay shrugged and laughed. "I'll go if Arno does."

And Arno tried not to think about how jealous his ten or eleven year old self would have been if he'd known this was coming. Because Halloween had always been his favorite holiday, and Shay had always been his favorite person. And he would never actually admit to crying, that Halloween when he was ten, but… but well yea. He had definitely cried.

"Okay," he said, and hung back a little bit as Elise hurried out of the room, shouting over her shoulder that she was going to find something to wear.

"She's a good person," Shay said, when Elise was out of earshot.

"Better than I deserve," Arno said, smiling a little. "I don't know how I got this lucky- Shay, I swear, when she told me that we could try this, I thought I must have been dreaming, I thought… I don't even know."

"First of all," Shay said. "She is not _better than you deserve_. You deserve to be happy, just like everyone else in this world. And Elise makes you happy, just like I think you make her happy. So you deserve each other, for as long as you both want this to last."

"And second?" Arno asked.

"And second-" Shay squeezed Arno's arm, and grinned at him. "You hold onto her, because finding someone like that is…" Arno winced at the way Shay's smile faded, the way his eyes went distant. He knew Shay must be thinking of Hope, and he thought how sad it must be to have the woman you loved turn into something like Hope. But eventually, Shay shook his head to clear it and Arno pretended not to notice the slip. "Finding someone like that is the best thing in the world, and losing them is the worst."

Arno nodded and hugged Shay.

"You know," Shay said, and Arno was happy to hear the hint of laughter creep back into Shay's voice. "I was at boarding school when I was a kid. We didn't really do the whole Halloween thing on campus."

"So this is your first-" Arno shook his head, trying to make it sound like a joke, but honestly _this was Halloween_ , the holiday of free candy and pretending to be something you're not, and Arno usually looked forward to the night all year long. He'd skipped the last few years, because he was starting to feel too old, but if Shay had never been ever, this was obviously for a good cause, and who cared what people thought? "Okay," he said. "So I'll show you all the best strategies to maximum candy gathering, and which neighborhoods to skip, and-"

And half an hour later they were out on the streets, in last minute costumes that made Elise laugh longer than Arno had heard her laugh in years, feeling ridiculous and childish and happy. It really was the perfect night, Arno decided- his favorite holiday, his two favorite people, all coming together into what he already knew would be one of his favorite memories.


	33. Chapter 33

Arno's father hadn't wanted him to go to Shay's trial, and Arno knew he needed to be there. They argued about it for days, a constant back and forth, waging a war that was equal parts angry shouting and angrier silences.

"I don't understand why you're so against this," Arno said for what felt like the ten billionth time, on the Friday morning that the trial was due to start. He wanted to grab his dad and shake him, shout that _he wasn't really his father_ , that he belonged in some other world. And he just… didn't remember. Here he was, carrying some old hurts or prejudices from whatever world he'd come from, and it was getting in the way of Arno doing what he wanted.

Which in this case, was being with Shay.

Except that so far, nothing Arno had said to him had done anything to help Charles remember. If anything, it had just made him angrier, made him dig his heels in and stop listening to what Arno was saying. Since it was apparently counterproductive, Arno had mostly given up trying to make Charles remember that his mind had come into this universe from somewhere else.

"He's a dangerous man," Charles said. His voice was exasperated, probably because they'd been over it so many times already. "And if you keep spending all your time with him, you will be the one to get hurt."

"I won't-"

"You _will_ , Arno! You will be hurt, just like everyone else that goes anywhere near Cormac."

"I'm going to that trial," Arno snarled. "I'm testifying on Tuesday, and I'm _going_ to be there the other days as well, because he needs and deserves all the support he can get. Alright?"

"Absolutely not."

"Fine, then!" Arno grabbed his backpack, almost hard enough to hit someone with it. "I'm fucking going to school, is that acceptable?"

"You watch your language!"

Arno made a noise that was not a word but was not quite a scream, and slammed the door behind him as he left. He made it halfway down the block before starting to smile, when he was safely out of sight of the house. Argument: check. Elise is driving him to the courthouse straight after school, but if Arno hadn't kicked up a fuss on today of all days, Charles would have been suspicious.

He was in a good mood all the way until he got to school, and then suddenly he wasn't because everyone _knew_. Arno didn't know if it was Bellec that had been spreading shit about Shay, or if his classmates had just drawn their own conclusions from the news coverage that had started up in the last few days. Either way, he couldn't so much as walk down a hallway without people pointing at him or saying unbearable things about Shay.

It was really awful, and by lunchtime Arno's good mood was completely gone. Elise found him at their usual table, and sat down next to him without saying anything. Arno kind of fell sideways on top of her, and continued poking at the slice of cafeteria pizza he didn't really want to eat.

"People really suck," Elise said after a while. She sounded unusually dejected. "I don't know why everyone thinks Shay's trial is their business, but it really-"

"Sucks?"

"Exactly." She sighed, and oddly enough Arno felt a little better knowing that he wasn't the only one upset by this. It was good to remember that there were other people that cared about what happened to Shay. The things people were saying, Arno was almost starting to think most people _wanted_ Shay declared officially nonhuman.

After a while, Elise shifted a little and stole Arno's pizza.

"Hey!"

"We both know you don't eat when you're upset," Elise said around her mouthful of pepperoni. "And I'm hungry." She swallowed and frowned. "Hey, did you hear Bellec is going to be at the trial opening this afternoon?"

"What?" Arno pulled away from her, frowning heavily. " _No_ , I had no idea. Why would he do that?"

"Probably because he's still pissed at you for putting him in the hospital," Elise said. "And he knows going will bother you."

"He put me in the hospital too," Arno grumbled. "He's just lucky he doesn't know anyone on trial or anything."

"Just ignore him," Elise said. "The more you let him bother him, the worse he'll get."

"But…"

"Arno. Just try and be nice. Even if it doesn't make anything better, at least you won't get in trouble for fighting again."

"I guess," Arno admitted, and so the next time he saw Bellec, instead of picking an argument and getting sent to the hospital for the second time in a single semester, Arno smiled at him.

Later, he would wish he hadn't. Because if he'd let Bellec take his anger out on him then, maybe Bellec wouldn't have gone looking for ways to up the ante, and maybe things wouldn't have turned out as terrible as they did, in the end. Maybe Arno would have been the only one to get hurt.

-/-

Kadar didn't go to school the day of the trial, which worried Malik a little. His brother wasn't the most committed student in the world, but he usually at least showed up. Today, when Malik gets home from class, he finds Kadar not even changed out of his pajamas, sitting around on the couch with his computer pulled open in front of him.

"What's wrong with you?" Malik demands, stopping in front of Kadar and crossing his arms. Kadar looked up at him, over at the clock on the wall, and then back at Malik.

"Shit," he said. "I didn't realize it was getting so late; I need to go and get ready for the trial."

"No." Malik caught Kadar's arm as his brother got up and tried to walk past him. "You need to stay here a minute and tell me what's wrong."

"I'm fine," Kadar says, flipping a hand around.

"You skipped school."

"I just didn't want to go."

"Because…"

Kadar sighed. "You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?"

"I don't think I would be doing my job as your brother if I let you sit here and be upset without at least telling me why."

"But Malik…"

"Kadar."

Kadar made a face and nodded. "Fine," he said. "It's just- you know how me and those two freshmen set up Arno and Elise a little while ago?"

"Sure," Malik agreed. "You were so proud of that when it first happened, but I haven't heard you talk about it in a while." Which was strange, because Kadar had been absolutely crowing with pride, earlier.

"Sure. And now I'm feeling a little bit like a third wheel," Kadar admitted, in a voice that was barely clearer than a mumble. "The three of us have been best friends since we were kids, and now they're together and I'm just stuck on the outside. And I _am_ happy that they're together and they're happy, you know, but it turns out that they have less time for me when they're spending as much time as they can together. And even before that, I just wanted to be normal. And there's all this stuff, with Shay and whatever, which is important of course but I want to go back to being normal. That's all."

"You'll never be normal," Malik said.

"Wow, thanks."

"I just mean that you're above average in every way," Malik told him. "No brother of mine is _normal_. You're better than that. And I know your friends know that as well. They'll come back to you, when they break up. And things will probably be awkward for a while, but you're really good with people. I know things will get better."

"Shut up," Kadar said, giving Malik a slightly painful punch on the shoulder. "Don't even joke, Arno and Elise are never going to break up."

"Yea?" Malik asked. "Because they're eighteen and statistically, most people don't stay with their high school sweetheart for the rest of their lives."

"These two will, though," Kadar said confidently. Malik sort of wanted to argue with him, but he also sort of liked the way Kadar was starting to sound more cheerful. "You just hate love, Malik."

"I do not," Malik scoffed.

"Whatever," Kadar said, and Malik smiled as Kadar turned to charge upstairs. That was one of the things he had always loved best about his brother; Kadar could bounce back from absolutely anything. "I'm going to get changed for the trial!"

"And go to school tomorrow!" Malik shouted after him.

"Killjoy!"

"Brat!"

"Fartface!"

Malik laughed, startled, and then forced the smile off his face. "How old are you?"

Kadar's face reappeared at the top of the stairs, peeking around a corner. "Lighten up," he told his brother. "And seriously, Malik, try to smile once in a while."

But Malik waited until Kadar was out of sight before letting himself grin.

-/-

Hope arrived at the courthouse early and sits outside, watching people walk in and out. This will be a well-attended case, which doesn't much bother her. The news had declared this the trial of the century, something that would be far more impressive if they didn't do the same thing every five years or so.

A teenaged boy sat down on the bench next to Hope, looking at her with the calculating eyes of a child that thinks it is being so much more intelligent than it actually is. Hope was not in the mood for conversation, and would have ignored him entirely if the boy hadn't spoken directly to her.

"You're Hope Jensen, aren't you?" he asked.

"I am. Are you anyone important?"

He didn't take the hint and leave. "My mom thinks I'm special," he said instead.

"Good for her. Are you going to leave?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"You haven't made a convincing argument to make me think you're worth it so far."

"Okay," the boy said. "But the news says you're probably going to lose."

"Well luckily, the news isn't the one going to be the one deciding the case." Hope already knew what people were saying. She wasn't particularly concerned.

"Everyone's talking about you at school, too," Bellec said. "And everywhere else, too. From what I hear, you wouldn't mind playing dirty to win."

"And you think you have some dirt?" Hope asked. She kept her tone absolutely calm, but the boy leaned forward like this was some kind of encouragement.

"I've known his kid since I was little," he said. "And if you want to get to Shay Cormac, you have to go through Arno Dorian."

"Arno Dorian," Hope echoed. She knew the name, of course. In every single world that Hope had watched Shay visit in the years he had been in her care- there had always been an Arno Dorian. So he was here as well. Interesting, and Hope couldn't really say why she was surprised. "Kid." Her gaze sharpened on him as he grinned. "What's your name?"

"Bellec. Pierre Bellec."

"And you know Dorian well enough to make a difference here?"

"The way I see it…" Bellec leaned forward, eager. There was a sharp light in his eyes like hunger, and Hope decided she liked it quite a lot. "You need to discredit Shay in front of everyone. The public, the judge, the jury. Get him angry, get him to lose control, and he'll do that universe thing that pisses everyone off so much."

Hope sighed. "And I was almost impressed with you," she said. "Clearly, you haven't done your research if you're calling it 'that universe thing'."

"I think I've done more research than most people would have, considering I only decided to talk to you a few hours ago," Bellec said. "But to get back to the point- once you discredit him, the jury is never going to listen to him. _No_ jury is ever going to listen to him again. You've won. And the way you get Shay angry is to use Arno. They'd willingly go to the noose for each other. He won't stay calm if you start throwing mud."

"I really like the way you think," Hope laughed. "Tell me everything you know about Arno, anything I can use."

"I will," he said, and Hope could see in his face that she _had_ him. And if she had this kid, she had Dorian, and if she had Dorian, she had Shay. It wasn't the strategy she'd planned on, but all the legalese her lawyers had come up with would still play its part in the trial. It would just work better if no one trusted the defendant.

Bellec spilled everything, and then sat back against the bench, chest heaving like he'd just performed some great feat.

"That's all good," Hope said. "I can use that." By God, could she use that. "But I have to ask, Bellec- this all seems fairly sudden. What exactly motivated the sudden change in heart?"

"Nothing."

"Lie."

"None of your business."

"I'm asking anyway."

They stared at one another for a very long time. "Fine," Bellec grunted. "Dorian pissed me off and this hurts him almost as much as it hurts Shay. Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," Hope said, which was an exaggeration, but only very slightly so. Who knew she would find something so close to a kindred spirit here, of all places? She scribbled her number on a piece of paper and passed it across to Bellec. "Call me when this is over," she said. "I think I could find some work for you."

"Really?"

Hope smiled as he took the paper. "I see certain qualities in you that I think ought to be encouraged."

"Oh." He smiled too. "Well, cool."

-/-

Arno met Shay in the doorway of the courtroom, and hugged him without a second's thought or so much as a word of greeting. It had already been a hard day and this trial was only going to make it harder. "I wish we didn't have to be here," he said. "But it's good to see you again."

"Missed you too, kid."

He felt Shay stiffen next to him moments before a woman's hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. "No-"

"Hope," Shay said, and Arno turned around abruptly. There she was, Hope Jensen, the source of all his current problems. Inches away.

"It's really not safe to be so close to a thing like that," she told Arno in a voice of such artificial sweetness it was almost repulsive.

"He's not a thing," Arno said stiffly.

"Let it go, Arno," Shay said softly.

"No!" he protested. Because this was Shay and he would always, always stand up for Shay. "He's a person! This is a real person you're trying to destroy, not some kind of thing!"

"Stockholm syndrome," Hope said dismissively. "You must have had an extremely terrible life if you consider this _thing_ is a friend." She turned to Shay, and went on a voice of perfect cheerfulness. "You've probably ruined this kid," she told Shay. "Everything you touch, you ruin. He's never going to have a normal life after being exposed to you for so long. He'll be broken and ruined for the rest of his life, all because you were selfish enough to want a son you didn't deserve-"

Arno didn't have to be psychic to know how this scene was going to play out, but as it happened- he was. He could literally see the situation playing out in front of him, Shay getting more and more pissed off by what Hope was saying (and really, she must have been trying to get a rise out of him, the way everything she said seemed perfectly aimed at making him angry). He saw Shay hitting her, saw bailiffs coming to take him away. And then he saw farther, to the trial, to Shaun doing his best to defend him in front of a jury that had already made up his mind. He saw the guilty verdict.

And he couldn't let that happen.

Ezio had taught him the words to say if this situation ever came up. The types of magic to invoke and the kind of energy to use. And so, as Hope's taunts got more and more deliberately cruel, Arno started to whisper those words to himself. He had never tried to change the future before, but he would now. He would do more than that, if it meant saving Shay.

He could feel himself wavering, shaking as energy flooded out of him to literally change the world. And then, moments before Shay would have hit Hope and ruined his life all in one action—

Arno hit her instead.

He hit her once to keep Shay from doing it, and then again because he was angry. She had insulted him too, after all. He might have even hit her a third time, except that was when Shay's horrified voice got through to him.

"What are you doing?" Shay demanded, but Arno didn't have a chance to answer before he was suddenly being taken away in handcuffs. The fact that he was being arrested (contempt of court, assault, something like that, he wasn't listening) didn't really register. Because it was _him_ being arrested, not Shay.

But then half an hour later he was at the police station and there was ink on his fingers from where someone had taken his prints, and that was when it was all suddenly real.

 _Shit_ , he was being arrested.


	34. Chapter 34

Shaun expressly forbid Shay from going to see Arno at the police station after the opening statements had been given and court was dismissed for the day. "He's a minor," Shaun said flatly. "He doesn't have a record, and his father is a high mage. Don't worry, Arno will be completely fine."

"He just got arrested!" Shay said. Shaun had his arm around his upper arm, a firm grip like he knew Shay would have been gone already otherwise. "He's not going to be _fine_ , he's going to be _in jail_."

"I'll go by later tonight," Shaun promised. "I swear, I know how this works, and I know most of the guys at the station. They're decent people, and Arno hasn't done anything worth more than a slap on the wrist. He'll be fine."

"So why can't I go see him?" Shay demanded. Shaun gave him a look of deepest pity, like Shay was quite possibly too thick to exist.

"Because you're on trial for something way worse than what he did today," Shaun said sternly. "Everyone must already know that the two of you are connected, but right now it only helps Arno for you to stay as far away as possible."

Shay nodded, although admitting it felt a little like a knife in his stomach. "Fine," he said. "But tell him to call me when he's home, alright?"

Shaun nodded, and gestured to his car. "Get in," he said. "I'll drop you off at home on the way to the station."

"I need to get to work, actually," Shay corrected.

"Whichever. I just want to see you safely somewhere else so that I know you're not with Arno."

Shay nodded stiffly, but didn't say anything else until they had gotten in the car and gone a little way away from the courthouse. "I just don't understand why he did that," he said at last.

Shaun snorted. "Right," he said. "I saw your face before he did—if Arno hadn't punched that woman, you would have."

"Better me than him," Shay said. He didn't bother trying to deny it, because yes, he had absolutely been about to hit Hope. Because Arno had been standing far too close to her, and he still didn't know that she was actually a mass murderer from another world. He didn't know how much _danger_ he was actually in, and Shay would have done anything to get Hope away from Arno.

"No," Shaun said. "Not better you than him. Because he'll get a slap on the wrist, and you would have lost the trust of everyone in that courtroom. And then you would have lost."

Shay grumbled but didn't argue. "I'll keep my temper under control from now on."

"You better," Shaun said, and the rest of the ride passed in absolute silence. Shay got out when they got back to the research tower. He'd been busy the last few days, not really coming in as much as he should have, and so as little as he wanted to be at work just now, it looked like he'd have a full night in front of him.

"Shay!"

Aveline nearly accosts him at the doorway of the lab, far more excited to see him than Shay had expected. "What's wrong?" Shay demanded, and she laughed in his face.

"You need to be less paranoid."

"With everything that's happened lately?" Shay shook his head. "I think I need to be _more_ paranoid."

"I just meant—I have good news," Aveline said. She shook her head and beckoned for Shay to follow her toward a cluttered work table. "We've been at work while you've been preoccupied with the trial—"

"Sorry about that."

"It's important," she said dismissively. "That's fine, we all understand. But listen, the point is that we've been at work and we figured something out."

"We're close," Altair corrected, and Shay looked up at him. Distracted by Aveline, he almost hadn't noticed that Altair, Maria, and Connor were all there as well. "We haven't quite figured it out."

"And what exactly _is_ it?" Shay asked.

"We can harness the energy you use when you go to other worlds," Aveline explained. "And we can use it to open portals without you being physically present. It's a huge breakthrough, Shay! With this, we can—"

"No."

He was thinking about Hope, about Charles Dorian, about even himself. He was thinking about all the hurt that had come from his travel through other worlds. And he was saying no.

"But why not?" Aveline asked. "Look, Shay, this is what we want, right? More information about what you can do."

"I just don't want anyone else to get into trouble," Shay said softly, and she looked sorry for him as he moved to the corner to work on his own. Why was it so hard to take care of the people around him?

-/-

Altair and Maria were the first to leave, not long after Shay finally showed up for work that night. Since he showed no sign of planning to leave anytime soon, and there wasn't much they could do with him around, there didn't seem much point in staying.

Of course, Altair hadn't been planning to leave _with_ Maria, and if anything he'd been planning to continue to avoid her as much as possible. Desmond could tease him all he wanted for being terrified of the woman, but the thing was, she'd never claimed Aveline was wrong. She had never claimed to not like him.

And Altair couldn't stop thinking about it. He had never, not once, looked at a woman and thought of her as beautiful. It was simply not something he'd had time to think, not something he'd wanted to let himself think. There were always other concerns, and… and women were… confusing…

"You look like there's something bothering you," Maria said when they were outside and on the street. Altair hadn't realized they'd be going the same way, the same way he hadn't realized they were going to leave at the same time. But here they were now, walking together, and he was starting to think that if _she_ liked _him_ , maybe it was alright for him to think of her in the same terms.

"It's Shay," Altair lied. Sort of lied. Because as much as Maria was bothering him, Shay was bothering him too (in a very different way, of course). "I don't understand why he asked us to do all this work and then refuses to see the results."

"He's been hurt," Maria said softly.

"In every way imaginable, from what I understand," Altair agreed. "But asking us for help was his way of trying to fix things. Now that's all undone."

"Not undone," Maria said.

"If he won't let us do the work, how are we supposed to help him?"

"We're going to keep working," Maria said firmly. She was always firm, whenever she spoke. Her work was always matter of fact, and she was so _certain_ , always, in what she said and what she did. "And when the whole nightmare of a trial is over and Shay calms down, we'll be ready for him."

"It just seems a little underhanded," Altair said. "If he asks us to stop—"

"If he _still_ wants us to stop when it's all over, that's when we will," Maria said. She was still calm. "Now come on. We should try and talk about something else."

Except that Altair didn't particularly want to talk about something else, not when the only other thing on his mind at the moment was her. He opened his mouth, waiting for something to fall into it, but nothing did. "Aveline said you like me," he said instead, and regretted it literally at once. "I am so sorry," he said, turning away and stiffening up.

"I—"

"You don't have to say anything," Altair told her. "We can pretend nothing happened."

"Or we could talk about it." And her voice was still firm, but her face was pale and uncertain when he turned back to look at him. "And figure out what we both think."

"I don't know _what_ to think," he said.

"Well neither do I," Altair said, slightly irritated now. "So how are we supposed to figure this out?"

"We could try this," Maria suggested, and reached for his hand.

-/-

Desmond had been on his way to work when he felt the strangest and most unexpected emotion coming over the bond between him and Altair. Had he been the one feeling it, Desmond would have recognized it at once. But since it was coming from Altair, he didn't understand the want—the _need_ —the longing, and the first, tingling beginnings of joy. Not until he burrowed deeper into his brother's mind, and saw him and Maria pressed together against a wall.

 _Oh._

He pulled out as quickly as possible, giving Altair the space he needed. Good for him. At least _something_ good seemed to finally be happening.

-/-

Malik first heard about Arno being sent to jail when Kadar came home from the courthouse with the distinct red eyed look that meant he'd been crying. Malik almost didn't want to ask, but as it happened he didn't have to. Kadar had barely taken one look at his brother before he was spilling out the whole story.

"I can't believe…" Kadar shook his head and laughed the kind of laugh people used when they didn't think anything would ever really be funny again. "No, never mind. I can absolutely believe that Arno would go to jail for Shay."

"Sure," Malik said slowly. "I mean, I think he'd suffer worse for that man. It's what family does."

"But neither of them should have to suffer!" Kadar protested. "That's my whole point! It's not fair, and it's not right! Malik…" He looked pleadingly at Kadar, the way he had when they were young. Kadar had always looked to Malik then, to get him out of whatever trouble he'd managed to fall into. "What am I supposed to do?" Kadar pressed on. "He and Elise are my best friends, Mal."

"Wow," Malik said drily. "Thanks."

"You're my brother, that's different." Kadar shook his head, and his expression was so intense that Malik chose not to argue. Maybe it was different, to have friends or to have a brother. He'd always had Kadar, but friends..? He supposed the closest he came to a friend was Altair, and that was far from what Kadar had with Arno and Elise. For a moment, he was jealous. And then, suddenly, he was not.

Because he had his brother, and he had his… whatever Altair was to him. And they were maybe not the most normal relationships in the world, but they mattered to him. And if Arno mattered to Kadar, then they mattered to Malik as well.

"I'll help," Malik said.

"What can you do?"

"What?" Malik scoffed. "Don't you believe in your brother anymore?"

"It's just that this is bigger than just _us_ , you know what I mean?" Kadar's voice was doing that funny warbly thing it had always done, even when they were kids, and which Kadar had _sworn_ he'd outgrown. But it still showed up, every time he started to get upset, and Malik had absolutely no defenses against it. Privately, he thought it was a good thing Kadar thought that voice was childish, because if he started using it more he'd have Malik wrapped around his little finger.

"What do you mean, _bigger than us_?" Malik asked stiffly.

"I mean this is the _law_ , Malik, this is lawyers and history in the making. And how are we supposed to fight something as big as all that?"

"However we can," Malik said. "And… okay, so maybe we can't do all that much. Maybe… this is better left to the people that know what they're doing. But your friend's in jail, and you're obviously upset, so I'm driving you down to visit him." It bothered him that he couldn't do anything else to help, but it apparently didn't bother Kadar.

"You hate driving," he pointed out, actually managing to smile a little.

"I know," Malik grumbled.

"And you hate prisons," Kadar added. "You told me they're archaic and counter intuitive because they only teach criminals how to be worse criminals."

"Yes, well, he's not in an actual prison, is he?" Malik asked, slightly impatient now. "He's in a holding cell at the police station."

"Still." And Kadar surprised Malik by abruptly reaching forward and hugging him. "Thank you."

"Sure." Malik pushed against his brother's forehead with two fingers. "Brat."

Kadar stuck out his tongue. "Mean."

"Yea, yea, yea," Malik grumbled. He swung his arm around his brother's shoulders and kept up the bickering all the way to the car, because that was what would work best to keep Kadar's mind off everything else.

And it was hard for Malik to persuade himself that any of this was making a difference. They weren't really _doing_ anything, how would this help anyone? But the truth of the matter was that Kadar worked on a different level than Malik. And while Malik's idea of being able to help was more along the lines of storming the police station (and even he could tell _that_ would most likely end badly), Kadar's was… just being there. For his friend.

So Malik did his best to just be there. For his brother. So his brother could be there for his friend.

-/-

Desmond was in a good mood, right up until the moment that his father walked into the bar. For a second, he felt like quoting Rick from _Casablanca:_ "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, he walks into mine—" but reconsidered. His dad had never been big on jokes, and he wouldn't have laughed now. Instead, he nodded.

"Do you want something?"

"Conversation," William said. He sat down in the seat closest to Desmond, who couldn't help the involuntary step or two he took back. It wasn't that he was afraid. No. Not afraid. (How long had he been telling himself that? Long enough to believe it? Long enough for it to be true?)

"This bar is for customers."

"Then get me a drink."

The room was as sparsely populated as ever, but the few patrons still there were starting to look interested. Not good—the only thing worse than talking to his father, Desmond thought, was having an audience.

"What do you want?" Desmond asked, with what he thought was truly impressive calm.

"If you have anything halfway drinkable mixed up in this swill, I'll take that."

Desmond nodded and turned his back as if examining the supply on the back wall. In reality, he was considering beating his father over the head with one of them. In the end, he picked something at random and slid it across the bar without looking.

"This is supposed to be drinkable?"

"Why are you here?" Desmond demanded, loud and abrupt like a shotgun blast. If only it had been actually capable of doing damage. By now absolutely everyone was looking at the two of them, and Desmond was painfully aware of their eyes like needles, boring into the pair of them. Damn.

"To support a colleague while she's tied up in court."

"Hope is fucking insane!" Desmond shouted. His father responded by raising his eyebrows and taking a casual drink of whatever it was Desmond had practically thrown at him. He hadn't even looked.

"Good God," his father said, making a disgusted face. "This really is disgusting." He put the drink down and shook his head disapprovingly. "I can't believe this is what you're doing with your life. How old are you?"

"I'm not surprised you don't remember," Desmond grumbled.

"And you're still here, still wasting your life at this dead end waste of time, still defending animals like Cormac."

"You—you really—he's a human being, and you—" Desmond literally could not finish his sentence. Instead, he marched around the bar, grabbed his father by the arm, and marched him out front to the deserted parking lot.

"And what exactly are you planning now?" his father asked. He seemed almost amused by Desmond's anger, a smile flitting around the edges of his face. "To hit me, perhaps? I suppose that would at least be a sign that there's something of a man in you."

"No," Desmond snapped. "Shut up."

"That tone—"

"I said, shut up." Desmond waited, almost surprised that his father had actually listened. When the silence threatened to get awkward, he went on. "The first memory I have was with you. I was five years old, and it was the first day of classes. I was excited, I couldn't wait to get to school. But that morning when I woke up, I was sick. You remember, I used to get sick a lot back then. You saw that I was upset, and you wrapped me up in a blanket and carried me into your room. You let me stay in bed all day next to you, watching TV and eating soup because it was the only thing you knew how to make."

His father looked at him, and although his expression was flat there was something in his eyes. "And?"

"And every time you do something I think I can't forgive, I remind myself of that day. Because maybe there's still a little bit of that human being buried under all the layers of shit you've built up over the years but—"

"Desmond—"

"Shut up! I hate that you've ruined even the one good memory I have of you, but there it is. You are a truly terrible person, and I'm sick of knowing that I came from you. The best thing I've ever done in my life was take that animus potion with Altair. Biologically, you haven't been my father for a long time but in my head—I was never quite able to get rid of you."

He pushed William away with the flat of both hands, sends him stumbling back toward the street. For a second—just a second—the man looked shocked. "Desmond."

"I'm done. You come here, you insult me, my job, and my friends, and you expect… I don't know what you were expecting to get out of me. I don't know and I don't care. All I know is that I'm done."

"Desmond!"

"Done!"

 **-/-**

 **Sorry for how long it took to get this chapter out- I've been trying not to make excuses, but life happened at the same time I started losing interest in this story. Don't worry (if anyone still happens to be reading this), it will be finished, I have everything planned out and I _will_ write it. It'll just be more slowly than before.**


	35. Chapter 35

**I am so sorry.**

 **-/-**

Hope had not expected that baiting Shay with Arno would be as effective as it had in fact turned out to be. She'd seen Shay's face when Arno was taken away for hitting her, and while that hadn't been the _plan_ , it had been extremely satisfying on a personal level.

So much so that she now wanted to see exactly how far she could push this kid. And, by extension, Shay. Seeing what would happen to Bellec when he found out what his information had done was an unexpected bonus. After all, everyone had to make time for their hobbies. It just so happened that Hope's favorite hobby of cutting people open and pulling out their organs was about to be extremely useful.

Hope had thought about killing Arno himself, except that she's almost convinced that would be enough to actually send Shay over the edge. If Arno died at her hands, Hope was legitimately afraid that she would die at Shay's. Besides, Arno was in jail.

So she's going after the next best thing. One of Arno's friends.

Bellec had told her that there were essentially only two people Arno considered friends: Elise de la Serre and Kadar Al-Sayf. It would have been far more effective to get at the girlfriend, but Hope was a little preoccupied with the trial, and she didn't have much free time just at the moment. And the girlfriend's father just so happened to work in the government, while the other friend was a nobody that lived with some bartender because his parents were useless human beings.

He had been easy to snatch. Out of bed, in the middle of the night. Hope had drugged him, to keep him from fighting back or screaming. The motel she took him to wasn't very clean, and it didn't exactly have the usual selection of equipment she preferred to work with. But Hope had brought this one here to send a message, and she didn't need much to be able to do that.

The kid was still out cold when Hope started cutting him open, but she considered letting the drugs wear off as she got deeper into the experiment. She had been curious for a while now about what kind of reaction a person might have to waking up halfway through the removal of their vital organs.

But no, she reminded herself. She was on a schedule, and she could not afford to take her time with this one. Maybe next time.

The rest of the operation was thoroughly clinical, and Hope allowed her mind to wander as her fingers worked mechanically through the kid's insides. After she won this case against Shay, Hope planned to lobotomize him. Immediately. She just couldn't risk him coming back at her with any kind of surprises. And there were potions that would allow him to retain enough autonomy to do as she wanted, without actually having any free will of his own.

Hope wanted that from him. He'd caused her enough trouble by now, Hope was looking forward to a little bit of obedience. Maybe—her mouth quirked up into a smile as the idea occurred to her—she could order Shay to snatch the kid that was so important to him now, maybe even have him help as she cut the brat open.

That would be a _very_ satisfying operation, Hope decided, as she carefully cut the kid's heart from his chest (she liked hearts—they made good souvenirs). Certainly more satisfying than this rush job was turning out to be.

In the end, it took about four hours for the boy to die, which was impressive given his size and Hope's preferred techniques. He had fought hard to live, but his death was inevitable, and in the end Hope walked out of that room with his heart in a jar and his cooling body on the grimy bed. She left the rest of the organs in jars scattered around the room, and ducked out the same way she had come in—unseen.

Later, she stole a phone and called 911. After all, if the body was discovered too late, it would start to decompose, and some of the fun would go out of the entire affair. By the time Hope showed up on what was scheduled to be the last morning in court, the discovery of the body of eighteen year old Kadar Al-Sayf was the only thing on the news. Hope smiled, and looked at Shay where he sat on the other side of the courtroom.

He already knew. She could tell. And his face, when he looked at her… it was better than she had imagined.

And as an added bonus, now Hope knew she was going to win. She'd started blackmailing the jury as soon as they'd been chosen, of course, regular messages as often as she could manage. But the threats she'd sent this morning had been so muchmore _effective,_ coming with pictures of a dead boy's insides. The jury wasn't made up of idiots as far as she could tell, and an idiot was the only kind of a person that wouldn't give up their morals in the face of that.

-/-

Malik found out what had happened to his brother the same way everyone else did—by seeing his picture on the news. For a minute or so he simply couldn't believe it. Because his brother… his brother wasn't _dead_. Malik had watched him heading off to bed just the night before, and Kadar never woke up before Malik went in there and dragged him out, so… so he had to still be there.

Malik's feet were carrying him upstairs and into his brother's room before his mind had consciously made the decision to move. He passed Desmond on the stairs and his face must have looked _awful_ because Desmond called something concerned after him, and then turned around and followed Malik when there wasn't an answer.

"Malik!" he called. "Malik, what's wrong?"

Malik ran to Kadar's room and slammed the door open—it took him all of two seconds to see the empty room and realize that _something_ was wrong. Malik had never been the kind of person that could lie to himself, even if he tried. Maybe there were other possibilities of where Kadar could be, but then there was the broadcast on the TV downstairs, Kadar's face lost in a sea of blood.

"No!" Malik shouted, and his voice _cracked_ the same way his life was _shattering_ before his eyes. "Kadar!"

"Malik!" Desmond caught him as he went down, knocking his head against the doorframe. "What the fuck—" he looked down at Malik, then over him to the (horrifyingly empty) bedroom. "Where's Kadar?"

"Dead," Malik spat. "It's on the news. It's on the _news_ , God—" He couldn't get any more words out, the sobbing stopped them. Desmond looked absolutely lost now, and in the end he sort of leaned Malik back against the wall.

"Stay there," he said sharply. "I need to…" but he shook his head and didn't finish. Instead, he ran back downstairs—Malik heard him stop after a while, and then after a moment's silence start to swear creatively. But then Malik buried his head in his arms and didn't know anything else for a long time.

His brother was dead.

What else could possibly matter?

After a long time, Malik heard footsteps and then felt Altair's hands on his shoulders. Malik recognized them at once—he had known, had worked with, had followed Altair for over a decade now. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I live here."

"Don't be stupid," Malik mumbled. "I know you already left for the trial. You wouldn't have left before the verdict was announced, not for anything."

A long, awkward pause. "I didn't," Altair admitted. "Desmond told me what happened after the jury had already come back with their decision."

"Oh," Malik said. "That was fast."

"Yes."

He wasn't sure if he really wanted to know, but thinking about anything else was better than thinking about the holes in his life where Kadar was supposed to be. "What did they say?" he asked. "The jury?"

"They deliberated for six and a half minutes," Altair said. "And then they came back with a unanimous vote in favor of Hope."

Malik nodded. And he couldn't pretend he cared about Shay the same way he cared about Kadar but it wasn't _fair_ , the way everyone was going away at once. "At least Kadar won't ever know," he whispered. "He was so worried about Shay and Arno…" He thought about Arno for a second, about him sitting in his jail cell and not yet knowing two of the most important people in his life were dead, or as good as. It was hard to muster up any sympathy at the moment.

"Come on," Altair said, tugging Malik to his feet and supporting him as they start walking. "There are things to do. The police just called—should have called sooner, but since when have the police known what they're doing?"

"Do we have to do them today?" Malik asked. "Right now?"

"I know you, Malik," Altair told him. "If I leave you to sit in your room and stew, you're going to lose it. You're the kind of person that needs something to do, so come on."

"I don't know… maybe you're right." But Malik could barely put one foot in front of the other right now. "I don't know how much good I'll do."

"I'll go with you," Altair promised him softly.

-/-

Arno was released from his holding cell sometime just after noon, and Elise was the only one there to meet him. By the look on her face, he knew no one else was coming.

"Hope won, didn't she?" he asked.

"Yes," Elise said quietly. "And there's more."

"More?"

"Worse?"

He stared at her. "What could possibly be worse?"

"Kadar's dead."

"Kadar's…"

"Dead." She wrapped her arms around herself when she said it, and Arno moved to comfort her. It was easier than thinking about his own hurt.

"How?" Arno asked after a long hug. Or not _after,_ exactly—after would imply that they planned to stop, at some point, when all Arno wanted was the exact opposite. To wrap himself up in Elise's arms and forget everything else in the world.

"I don't know," Elise said. "I mean, I know _how_ , everyone that's turned on their TV at all today knows how. I just don't know why."

"Then tell me what you know."

"Somebody killed him," Elise said. "It wasn't an accident, it was murder. Cold blooded, clinical… _cruel_. Arno, they sliced him open and cut everything out of him but his skeleton."

"God," Arno whispered, shuddering. "There's a mental image."

"It's worse when you see the actual pictures," Elise said, her tone one of absolute misery.

Arno pulled away from her, shaking too hard to hold Elise any longer. He ran his hands through his hair, scowling at the oily feel of it after a couple days without a shower. "I have to do something."

"Like what?" Elise asked. "You can't do anything for Kadar, he's already dead."

Which was true. And Arno should have seen this coming, he should have been able to do something, to at the very least see this coming. What good was it to be a psychic if he didn't see the things he really needed to? But—

"It's not too late to help Shay," he said.

"How?"

"No idea."

"What? Arno, no! You can't just go running around with no plan when there's murderers and whatever running around!"

"I didn't say I don't have a plan," Arno said, way more calmly than he felt. "I just don't know what it is yet."

"But—"

"I'm a _psychic_ , Elise!" Arno said, voice rising. "And that should have been enough to save the life of one of my best friends and it wasn't! But it's going to be enough for Shay."

"So you're just going to…"

"Look at everything. Every vision that comes to me. Ezio taught me to block them when I was a kid, and for good reason. It's dangerous to see too much. But…" he closed his eyes, reordering his mind, knocking down the barriers he'd put up years ago. Usually, he only looked into the future when he needed to know something specifically.

When he opened his eyes again, though, he was seeing everything. Every vision that came to him, the way it had when he was a child. These were the kinds of visions that had led him to Shay in the first place, and even now, Arno smiled softly at the memory.

"Arno, are you okay?"

He nodded at Elise's question, but didn't look at her. These were the only visions he couldn't bring himself to see. Because if he looked at her, and saw that maybe they didn't have a future together, Arno didn't think he would be take it. Not now. He couldn't lose Elise too, on top of everyone else.

She didn't question him, or his strange behavior. Just hugged him hard from behind. "You do what you need to do," she told him. "But make sure you come back."

"I will," Arno said. "And I'll bring Shay with me."

He squeezed her hand, and then started running. First stop—home. Arno wasn't sure how much good he'd be able to do still smelling like a jail cell. And after that… well, after that he'd go wherever his visions took him.

-/-

But when he got home, his not-dad was there waiting for him. With his eyes fully open to every vision coming his way, Arno could _see_ him for what he was, see the world he had come from and the past Charles had forgotten from the transfer.

"Arno," Charles said, and Arno saw white robes, a blade attached to a bracer, what looked like a really old version of Paris. "You're home."

"Yea, well—" he wasn't in the mood to be kind. He was in the mood to cry, but he had already cried, on the way over, and now he was in the mood to shout. "I didn't come back for you."

"Arno," Charles said. "Son…"

"You're not my father!" Arno shouted. "Can't you just—"

"We have talked about this before!" Charles said, shouting as well. "I'm not from some other world, Arno. I am from this world, right here."

"No," Arno insisted. "I'm psychic. I'm looking at you right now, and all I can see is where you come from, and you know what?" His entire brain was shouting at him to shut up and just leave. He needed to go help Shay, not stay here arguing a hopeless argument that he'd already been through a dozen or more times before. So he pressed on. "What I'm seeing isn't all that bad. And they're your memories, you shouldn't… you shouldn't lose sight of that. It's your life."

"My life is here," Charles said. "With you."

"It's there," Arno said. "Please, just try to remember."

"But—"

"Just. Try."

And hesitantly, Charles closed his eyes. When there was no reaction at all for several long seconds, Arno began to quietly describe what he was seeing. The visions dancing around Charles of what his life used to be.

"I don't know," Arno said after a while. "You always dressed in weird clothes. I mean, not just 'really old' weird, but like… I don't know. White robes, which sounds really stupid but it actually looks kind of cool? You look like you might have been a secret agent in your real life. Or—"

"An assassin," Charles said, in a small voice. Small, and slightly afraid, but _certain_."

Well, that was slightly terrifying, actually. Arno pushed through though. "So you remember?"

The response came in a rush of French that Arno (who had to rely on high school French and a couple visits to Versailles with Elise's family) couldn't really follow. But by the look in Charles's eyes when he opened them again, Arno could tell. He had remembered. And it had hurt.

"Sorry," Arno said softly.

"No," Charles said. The words were back to English, but with a heavy accent now. He sat down (fell, almost, into the nearest empty chair) and looked at Arno. " _I'm_ sorry. I should have listened to you. You are not my son."

"Great," Arno muttered. "I guess I should have tried that earlier." Because he still wanted to go running after Shay, but now he felt bad for so thoroughly crushing the man in front of him. Whoever he was, really.

So he just stood there, awkward and unhappy. "Go," Charles said at last. "I can tell you're in a hurry."

"I need to save Shay," Arno said.

Charles's mouth quirked up into a smile. "I know that name," he said. "From—from my world, I mean. He's a templar there."

"I don't know what that means," Arno said. "It's some religious thing, isn't it?"

"It's complicated," Charles said. "Long story short, he was not a good man. I suppose—" (he added this grudgingly). "That's why I tried so hard to keep you away from him."

"He's a good man in this world, though," Arno said. "And I need to help him, and to do that…" he shuddered. "I don't know. I don't know what to do, I'm just trying to find the right vision to tell me where to go, how to help but I can't see everything at once, and I'm so scared I'm going to miss whatever it is I need to see." Or worse, that there was nothing _to_ see. That the future did not hold a way for Arno to save Shay.

"Go high," Charles said. He stood up and clapped Arno on the shoulder. It was a stiff, impersonal gesture, which Arno was weirdly glad of. He was just so tired of seeing this visitor from another world pretend to be his father. "You're not my son but from what I've seen, you do what's right."

"I try."

"Well, go high." He almost smiled. "In my life… my real life… that was what I was always told. When you need to see more, go up."

"Thanks."

"Go," Charles said. He waved Arno away, and made a face. "And change your clothes. You smell like jail."

"Thanks," Arno said, and fled.


	36. Chapter 36

He went high. Not very high, because he wasn't very good at climbing, but Arno went as high as he could. Up to the roof. He could see a lot from up here, things that were really there and things that weren't yet. From up here they were small, manageable. Arno drank them all in, not just the sights but the feelings as well.

There was a lot to see. Some of it, Arno tucked away in the back of his mind for later. He was looking for ways to help Shay but… there was a lot of suffering in the world. Some of it, maybe Arno could help with. Later. But now…

He almost shouted aloud when he found it, the way out of this whole mess, the way to save Shay once and for all. Not just get him away from Hope, but make him useless to her. It was the perfect solution, and for once there was no down side. Arno could save Shay, and he could do it in a way that was _good_ , in a way that… _God_. This was something he'd once dreamed of as a child. He'd sat up at night after Hope first took Shay and wished. Dreamed. Prayed, even.

He didn't bother climbing back in the window, but sort of scrambled off the roof onto the single story garage, and from there, tumbled down to the ground with only a few scrapes to show for it. He hesitated, but in the end didn't feel too bad about stealing the car. He really needed it, and he had been waiting months to be able to actually use his license.

He kept to the speed limit only in the parts of the city where his visions told him the police were hanging out. Elsewhere, he pressed down on the gas as hard as he could until he was going at a speed that would have made him crash if he didn't happen to be psychic.

Finally, he arrived. Just in time, because Desmond, Altair, and Malik were about to head out. Arno saw where they were going, and frowned. A funeral parlor. Arno only looked at them for a second, but in that second he saw what the next few hours were going to hold for the three of them. Decisions about the coffin, the headstone, the funeral itself. Anger. Sadness. A loss so deep that just seeing it coming stole Arno's breath away. He couldn't look at Malik just then. Not with that kind of sadness clinging to him.

He hated that his need to save Shay was keeping him from caring about Kadar right now. Kadar had been his best friends since they were chubby little brats running around and getting into trouble. Now he was gone.

Kadar was gone, and there was nothing Arno could do to help him. But he still had a chance with Shay.

"Desmond," he said. "Altair."

"Arno," Desmond said. He looked mildly concerned to see Arno there, and he realized that if he looked half as desperate as he felt, he must look a real mess. "What's wrong?"

"I'm really really sorry about Kadar," Arno blurted. "And I know you don't need me bothering you right now, but I really need your help to save Shay. Both of you."

"It's too late," Altair said tiredly. "I know you don't want to hear it, but Hope won. What are we supposed to do?"

Arno tried to figure out a way to look at him, which was hard when he had his arm around Malik to keep him on his feet, and Arno was still trying really hard not to look at Malik. He figured it out eventually, sort of twisting his head sideways and squinting. "It's not too late," he insisted. "I saw it."

"A vision?" Malik scoffed. But his voice lacked all the sarcastic bite Arno was used to hearing from him. It just sounded flat, like a robot was dubbing over what he'd said. "Where were those visions yesterday, when they could have saved my brother?"

"Malik," Altair scolded.

"No." Arno took a breath and forced himself to focus on Malik. Because yes it was hard, but he needed to see this. Maybe Malik was right. Maybe he should have been able to see this coming and stop it. "It's okay. I—I wish I could have done more. Anything. But just because I can see the future doesn't mean I see everything. I'm psychic, not omniscient. If I'm not looking in the right direction… I don't see stuff." Even now, with his eyes open as far as they could go, Arno was still in constant, paralyzing fear of missing something important. He couldn't afford surprises, but… but, well, there was a sinking feeling in his gut that he was pretty sure was tied to _some_ kind of vision, a feeling that told him an 'oh shit' moment was coming. He just had to hope it wouldn't be too bad.

Malik looked at him, and the normal Malik would have pursued this, insisted on an apology or something to make things better. This Malik just looked at the ground and took a shuddering breath like he was trying not to cry.

"I'm sorry," Arno told him. "But I have to save Shay. And—" he looked back at Altair and Desmond. "I need your help to do that."

"What are we supposed to do?" Desmond asked.

"I need the animus potion."

-/-

Malik watched with a kind of numb detachment as Altair and Desmond bickered with Arno. He didn't care. He just… didn't care. Couldn't care. In the end, Arno won and Desmond went back into the house to get something, and Altair guided Malik into the car. "You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," Malik lied. It didn't matter if he told the truth. Altair had to know there was no way anything was fine, and therefore there was no point in asking. He leaned limply against the side of the car until Desmond came back, passed something onto Arno, and got in next to Altair. There was a brief delay while Arno relayed some breathless message to Desmond, but Malik didn't listen and soon enough Arno was gone. Then they were off as well.

It was a long drive to the funeral home, but felt extremely short. Malik could never later remember anything from the trip, only the way his mind spiraled around and around, down into a dark place. He was trying to figure it out, who to _blame_ for all this. Because he didn't know who had killed Kadar, and the police kept finding new ways to say they didn't have much hope in finding them.

So Malik turned to other places to find blame. He tried himself first, but couldn't live with the feeling. He tried Altair, Desmond, who were supposed to be responsible for Kadar—but they were upset too, and in some respects they were even family. Malik didn't like the way blaming them made him feel, either. Arno would have been a convenient target, because he was psychic, and he claimed to be Kadar's friend, but he hadn't done anything to help. Except Arno wasn't having any of it, and Malik was irritated to find out that it was really hard to blame someone that wasn't willing to take that blame.

And that left nowhere for Malik to focus his anger, and without a target… he was losing himself in that anger, drowning in loss, curling up inside himself so deep he knew there was only one person that would be able to pull him back out.

And Kadar was dead.

Malik didn't notice the car had stopped until Altair came around to his door and helped him out. "Come on," he said. "You should be part of this."

"Is he here?" Malik asked. "Did they—is the body here?"

"I don't know," Altair said. "Maybe. The morgue might not have released him yet."

Malik shuddered, but forced himself to speak. "If he's here, I need to see him."

"It's going to be messy."

"I know. I saw the news."

"It'll be worse in person," Altair said. "I was the one they called to go down and identify the body and I'm telling you. It's worse in person."

"How would you feel if it was Desmond?" Malik hissed, and Altair didn't argue anymore with him after that. In fact, as soon as they met the (to Malik, who wasn't processing things too well at the moment) nameless, faceless man that was supposed to be helping them, Altair insisted Malik be shown Kadar's body.

And so that was where Malik was, while Altair and Desmond dealt with the details of how Kadar was going to be buried. As if it mattered. As if Kadar would be able to enjoy any of it.

There was a room at the back of the building for storing bodies that looked nothing like the morgues Malik had seen on television. Someone asked if he was sure, and Malik managed to nod.

Altair had been right. It was worse in person. Kadar's body was shredded. It had been pulled apart, destroyed by someone that knew exactly what they were doing. Malik wasn't great at biology but he knew there was a lot more space in his brother's carved open chest than there should have been, and that was when he saw the neatly labelled containers next to the body. 'Left Lung,' 'Liver,' 'Small Intestines.'

"That's all his organs," Malik said.

"Well, all but the heart."

Malik glanced at the man. "Who has that?" he asked. "The police?"

The guy just shrugged. "They said it wasn't at the scene with the rest. Whoever killed your brother probably took his heart with them."

Malik's chest was aching as he nodded. "Well, that makes sense," he said. "They took mine, too."

-/-

Shay was relieved when the guards knocked him out before transporting him to Hope. He knew there was little hope of ever waking up… himself… again. Hope would keep him unconscious until she'd finished whatever shitty plan she had ready for him. When he woke up, it would all be over.

But at least unconscious, he could travel to other worlds. There were so many people he would never be able to see or speak with again, but he would be able to spend his last moments with Hope. His Hope, not the monster that had replaced her.

She recognized him the moment he arrived, he could see it in her eyes. And Shay didn't know why his other self was already there visiting her, but he also didn't care. "Hope," he said, and he got up, walked around the table separating them, knelt in front of her chair, and kissed her.

It wasn't the best kiss they'd ever had. She was chained and bolted, and smelled exactly like a woman that had lived on death row for over a decade _should_ smell. And there were cameras watching their every move, which meant a guard or something would probably be by to break them up soon.

But Shay didn't care. His life was over, and there was no longer any reason to hold himself back. So no, that kiss wasn't the best they'd shared. It couldn't hold a candle to their first, under the stars a mile away from the homestead after they'd broken out on a Friday night. It was nowhere near as good as the first time Shay told her he loved her, on the day of their graduation when they were both just slightly tipsy, and ecstatic with the happiness of each other and the untold beauty of their futures. But this kiss had desperation going for it, a passion fueled by the knowledge that it was their first in years, and would be their last.

When they finally stopped, Shay said "I lost my trial."

"I exhausted my last appeal," Hope said glumly.

"I'm being transferred to your custody right now," Shay said. "The other you."

Hope let out a breath and nodded. "I'm going to be executed on Friday."

"Is that what other me came here to tell you?" he asked.

"Yes."

So there they were, the two condemned, and Shay wanted to laugh. "How did we get here?" he asked hopelessly. "What were we supposed to do differently? This isn't the way our story was supposed to end, Hope."

She shook her head, and Shay reached up to wipe away the tears she couldn't take care of herself. Her hands trembled in their chains. "Do you remember what our plans were?" she asked. "When we were still at school, trying to figure out what the future was going to be?"

He nodded; they hadn't been big on plan making back then. It had all been simple. "Happily ever after," he said. "That's all we wanted."

"Happily ever after," she echoed. "Instead we got this."

"I hate this," Shay said. He kissed her again. He couldn't help himself, and she didn't seem to mind. It was easier than thinking about everything that he was about to lose. Hope, of course, but also Arno. Desmond. Gist. All his friends, the family he'd slowly managed to build up around himself over the years.

The kiss didn't end until the guards finally arrived, and even then they didn't stop until they literally pulled Shay away from her. He wanted to sob, but didn't want Hope to see him. It was bad enough hearing her tears, as strong arms pulled him back and away and out of the room. And that was it. That was the last good thing Shay could reasonably expect to see in his life.

-/-

Arno arrived at the hospital and _knew_ he wasn't too late (because of his visions). But that didn't stop the tense feeling in his chest, sending his heart beating a mile a minute and stealing the breath from his lungs. He'd already seen what Hope had brought Shay here for, that vision had been pounding its way through his head all the way up from the lobby. They were going to use enchantments on him that would basically lobotomize him. _They were going to kill him_. Not his body, but everything that made him… him.

Arno choked back a sob and sped up. In his hand, he clutched the two tiny vials of potion Desmond had handed off to him. Just hard enough to keep from dropping them, not hard enough to break them. If they were lost, then so was everything else.

Hospitals were confusing places, and Arno would have gotten lost half a dozen times if he hadn't had his visions to rely on. As it was, he managed to avoid cameras, nosy nurses, and most importantly _Hope_ , and arrive at Shay's room just as the man on guard went on a coffee break.

He loved being psychic. Right at this moment, despite all the headaches and the hassles that had come from it before, he loved being psychic. Because that, plus the animus potion Desmond had given him, were going to save Shay.

There were three tubes attached to Shay, and Arno tore them out in one quick motion that the unconscious Shay didn't even seem to notice. "Come on," Arno pleaded. He grabbed Shay by the shoulders and shook, hard. "Wake up, Shay, please! You have to wake up!"

And eventually, Shay's eyes opened. Just a crack. "…Arno?"

"Shay, thank God." He almost cried. "I'm going to save you."

"'s too late," Shay mumbled, obviously still fighting back the drugs in his system. "too late…"

"It's _not_ ," Arno insisted. "Trust me, Shay, I'm psychic."

Shay didn't say anything, but sort of squinted up at Arno in a curious sort of way. Arno took this as an invitation to explain, and rattled off the quickest summary he could manage. "Remember that potion Desmond and Altair took?" he asked. "The animus potion that made them brothers even though they weren't when they were born? It changes DNA. Combines the genetic information of two separate people, just mashes it up and makes them the same."

"Wha..?"

"Your whole 'universes in your head thing' is tied to your DNA," Arno explained. "You take the potion and I take the potion, and our DNA gets all scrambled up and redistributed. We'll both be half you and half me. As long as you get that _one particular gene_ from me, nothing else matters. " And sure, there was a chance Arno would just end up getting Shay's universes in his head too. Then they would both be screwed, but that was a chance Arno was willing to take. A fifty-fifty chance of saving Shay was better than no chance at all. The risk was _worth_ it, even if there was an equal chance that Arno would be put in the same position as Shay.

At least they would die together.

Shay mumbled something but Arno wasn't listening. They had to take this chance. "It's the only way to get these worlds out of your head," he said bluntly. "And that's the only way to get Hope to stop this. Once you don't have all these worlds in your head, she won't _want_ you anymore!"

"Arno—"

He shook his head and downed the first potion in his hand. "Please."

Shay's eyes were still muddled and confused from whatever they'd given him to knock him out, but Arno managed to get him to open his mouth and drink anyway. And that was it—Desmond had told the story of how he and Altair became brothers half a hundred times, and Arno had never quite believed how _easy_ Desmond said the thing was. But immediately, as soon as they had both finished the potion, Arno felt… something. Like a tingle from the inside out.

"It's going to be okay," he said, stumbling back to sit next to Shay on his bed. His legs were changing under him as his genes drifted closer to Shay's, and his center of balance was suddenly all wrong. But Shay was changing too, and the first moment that Arno could recognize something of _himself_ in Shay's face was the moment Arno let himself relax.

This was going to work. It had to work. And when it was over, as an added bonus…

They were going to be family.

 **-/-**

 **I'm not usually great at planning my stuff, but this particular part with the animus potions is the whole reason I brought them into the story in the first place. Altair and Desmond wouldn't even be _in_ the fic if I hadn't needed to explain what it did earlier.**


	37. Chapter 37

Shay's head ached when he finally woke up, and something—everything, really—felt wrong. His body didn't quite fit him, and that should be something he was used to after how many universes he had been through by now. But in all those worlds, Shay had still been himself. Older, younger, sometimes sick, sometimes too skinny or too fat, but always himself.

And thinking about his time in those other worlds made Shay realize what else was wrong. His universes were gone. Just… gone. And he did not mourn their loss, apart from one thing. Hope.

His Hope. The one he had caught in another world through his own mistake, and who was now… what? Those worlds were _gone_ , did that mean they were just out of his head, or were they completely gone? Hope was due to be executed in a couple of days, but that was an entirely different kind of death as an entire universe winking out of existence. And there were all the other people in that world—good people, like that world's Shay, who had helped him, or Arno. Or what about the billions or trillions of people on all the worlds that were (or had been) in his head?

He sat up, head spinning, and knocked his knee into the other person sprawled out unconscious next to him. For a second, Shay thought it must be Arno. He could dimly remember Arno's urgent, worried voice pleading with him to do… something, before Shay had woken up all the way. But while this boy was around Arno's age, he was stockier and somehow rougher, and Shay's mind went absolutely blank as it reached unsuccessfully for some kind of explanation.

But then the boy groaned and rubbed at his face as he sat up unsteadily, and when his eyes focused on Shay they were bright blue. They were Arno's eyes, and they were lit up with a fierce, excited happiness Shay had only really seen from Arno a few times in his life.

"Arno?" he asked, hesitantly, and his own voice sounded upsettingly unfamiliar in his ears.

"It worked," Arno said. He sounded excited, and Shay could see no reason for that, the way things stood now. "Do you still have your universes?"

"No!"

Arno let out a cheer of triumph, and hugged Shay tight. Shay, still confused beyond reason, did not return it. "What's going on?" he demanded. "What did you do?"

"I—" Arno pulled away, frowned at Shay through that unfamiliar face. And yet… maybe unfamiliar wasn't the right word. When he really looked, Shay could see bits of Arno here and there on this new face, and the rest of him looked… Shay couldn't place it, but he almost looked like someone he'd used to know. "It was the animus potion. If you don't have any universes inside you, Hope won't want you. She'll leave you alone, Shay! It's the perfect solution."

Except that it wasn't, because—"No, Arno," Shay said softly.

"But it is!" he insisted, and his stubborn determination fit Arno's new face well. "What's she going to do to you now that she can't run her experiments?"

"Probably kill me," Shay said bluntly.

"That seems like a pretty extreme escalation," Arno said, crossing his arms. "Experiments are one thing, but murder?"

"I haven't been entirely honest with you," Shay admitted. "Hope doesn't belong here. She's… years and years ago, when I first hurt her, I didn't just hurt Hope's brain physically. I switched her mind with a Hope from another universe. And I didn't know it for a long time, not until after I was back here." The words were coming faster and faster, and Shay couldn't have stopped them even if he'd wanted to. "I'm still seeing them, Arno, or—I guess that's over now. So I _was_. Every time I fell asleep. And I found my Hope, and she… she's been in prison ever since she switched with the Hope that's here now. On death row, actually, because that other Hope was a murderer. A psychopath, a serial killer. And my Hope has been sitting in jail for those crimes, while the one that actually committed them walked free. Here."

"You never told me," Arno whispered. Then, louder—"You never _told_ me!"

"I didn't want to worry you."

"How do you think I'm feeling now?" Arno demanded.

Shay didn't answer. It was a fair point.

"So if she's a murderer," Arno said, "Is she the one that killed Kadar?"

"It's more than likely, yes," Shay said. "That's her style."

Arno groaned, rubbing at his face with his hands. Shay thought he might have been wiping away new tears. "Come on," he said, pulling at Shay's arm without looking at him.

"Where are we going?"

"Anywhere. I don't know. But I didn't come this far just to let you die now."

"We'll never get out of here," Shay objected. "She has guards everywhere."

"And we have two psychics," Arno said calmly.

"Ezio's here?" Shay asked, and Arno gave him a confused look.

"No."

"But you said— who's the other psychic?"

"It's genetic," Arno said, like this was supposed to explain everything. It didn't.

"And?" Shay demanded impatiently.

Arno's response was to pull out his phone and open the camera. "Here," he said. "Look at yourself."

Shay almost dropped the phone, he was so surprised by what he saw on the screen. The man picked up on the phone's camera was a stranger, eerily similar to Shay's mental image of himself but off somehow. Honestly, he looked like an older version of what, or who, Arno had become. Every feature had a tint of something… else. Of something—

Of Arno. But it was not until Shay saw his eyes that he put it all together. He must have known it, on some level. That was what the potion did, after all, took two people and combined their DNA. But he hadn't really realized what that meant until now, that there were pieces of himself in Arno and pieces of Arno in him.

Shay's eyes had turned pale, icy blue. A psychic's eyes. "Oh."

And as if this were a signal of some kind, the visions kicked in. Shay dropped the phone and groaned like he'd been punched in the gut. Everywhere he looked, little pieces of the future were playing out in front of him, scenes of things that made no sense to him without any context.

"It's okay," Arno said. "Are you—" he hesitated, then pulled at Shay's arm. "Are you okay?"

"How do you do this?" Shay asked.

"Lots of practice. I'll help you, like Ezio helped me."

"How?"

"Just focus on one thing at a time," Arno said. "Like—look." He pointed Shay's gaze toward the door. "Do you see that?"

He saw Hope, shouting in wordless rage as she rushed through the door. Shay flinched away, despite knowing it was just a vision, it couldn't hurt him. Yet. "Yes."

"That's a good vision."

"She looks pretty pissed."

"Because she just came in and found you gone," Arno said. "So come on, let's go!"

And Shay allowed himself to be led away without protest. And the farther they got from the room, the more insistently his mind turned back to Hope. His Hope. The Hope he would never be able to see again.

-/-

Shay was gone when Hope came back to his room. Just gone, and the guards didn't know where (or even _when_ ) he left. Useless bastards. Hope growled and shouted until one of them pointed out that well they did have security cameras, after all. Maybe if she wanted to know what had happened so badly, she should look at that.

Hope put the guard on her mental list of _people that need to fucking die_ and made a mental note to track him down later. He'd die for his rudeness alone. His family would die because he'd lost Shay.

But she looked at the security footage anyway. She saw everything—Arno's rescue, the potion, the loss of almost a million universes. Including Hope's own home. And that loss… hurt. In a way Hope hadn't expected it to. She'd never wanted to go back, but she'd wanted it to be there.

Well. If Arno thought this little game, this stupid little _trick_ was going to save Shay, he was wrong. All this had done was put him on the kill list next to Shay. Maybe in front of Shay. Hope momentarily debated whether it would be more satisfying to make Arno watch her kill Shay, or to make Shay watch her kill Arno. Both had their merits.

She'd figure something out. Maybe kill them both at once (she'd never done two at the same time before). Hope usually wasn't a fan of cliché supervillain moments, but she was starting to consider some extremely elaborate plans for the two of them.

She was just heading off after them when William Miles came hurrying toward her, anger etched across every line of his face. "You went and _lost_ him," he said. "After all the money and time we spent on getting Cormac back, you lost him."

"Miles, trust me," Hope growled. "This is not the time—"

"No," he snapped. "You've had him for all of two hours, and—"

She hit him, then, and would have done more, wanted to do more, but as she was reaching blindly for a weapon someone kicked her hard in the head. Hope reeled back, clutching at the place where her head was suddenly radiating pain. But she was a fighter, a hunter, a killer, and she wasn't planning to go down easily.

Hope swiped out blindly at her unseen attacker, but she was on the ground and they were stronger. A second hit made her vision start to swim, and the third was enough to send her at once into a dark unconsciousness.

-/-

Desmond looked at his father, then back down at Hope's body.

For once in his life, William looked gob smacked. "Desmond?"

"She was trying to kill you," Desmond said. "Arno told me." It had been the only semi coherent thing Arno had said, when he stopped by the house to demand the animus potion. _"Your father's in danger, Hope wants to kill him."_

And Desmond could tell by the scowl that his father both knew who Arno was and didn't much like him. Well, big surprise. Who did the man like? But even he couldn't argue with a psychic.

"Did that psychic tell you that you had to come save me?"

Desmond didn't answer immediately. He had crouched down over Hope's body, and started to dig through her bag. He wasn't sure what he was looking for—a weapon, or some kind of explanation, or… something else. But something else was exactly what he found. A heart in a jar, and Desmond knew at once whose it was. Kadar's. And it ate at him, the sight of the heart, and the memories of the little boy he'd taken into his home, the man he'd grown into.

"Arno didn't tell me what he'd seen me do," Desmond said softly. "I just decided to come."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I really don't."

William took a breath. "So she's… Hope—"

"A serial killer from another world," Desmond said. "Yep."

"Well," William said. There was a long moment of silence, as they both studied Hope where she lay. Then he kicked at her a little. "What a bitch."

Desmond cracked a smile. For the first time in his life, possibly, he agreed with his father wholeheartedly.

-/-

Shay was not doing very well by the time Arno actually got him back home. There was no question of taking him anywhere else, not when Shay was suddenly shaking under the shock of visions, and anyway he… he could _see_ them going to Arno's house, as plain and as true as the present moment.

"What happens after this?" Shay asked, when Arno had settled Shay somewhere safe. He had no plans whatsoever. No ideas. Nothing.

"Dunno," Arno said. "I'm going out."

"Stay."

"I can't," Arno said reluctantly. "I want to." He sat down next to Shay and touched him—hesitantly, on the forearm, then drew back. Shay wished he wouldn't, and put his arm across Arno's shoulder to pull him close. "I want to stay here and pretend everything's back to normal. I want things to _actually_ be normal. But Hope killed my best friend. She can't keep walking around free. And your Hope—"

"She's gone, Arno," Shay said dully. And it hurt to admit, but it was true. Lying to himself wouldn't make anything better.

"Never know," Arno said, in a tone that was almost cheerful. "So I'm going out again, to follow my visions and… see where they take me, again."

"I'm coming with."

"You're staying _here_ ," Arno said insistently. "Where it's safe. Well—safeish. Dad's here. And he remembered where he's from so I don't think he'll like you being here too. But you don't really look like you did the last time he saw you so…"

"So I'll just look like a home invader is all."

"You're smart," Arno said. "You'll figure it out."

He got up and started to go, but Shay pulled him back. "Hey," he said. "If you have to go, come back safe."

"I promise," Arno said, hugging Shay hard. "I love you."

"Love you too, kid."

But then Arno was gone, and Shay was blessed with all of five minutes alone before Charles Dorian came down the stairs. Shay gripped the back of his chair, uncertain what to do. He wasn't the only one that looked changed; Charles was physically the same, yes, but the way he carried himself was suddenly transformed. "Cormac?" Charles asked.

"Yes."

"You look different."

"Magic," Shay said, and watched Charles flinch at the word.

"Because that's real here."

"It is," Shay said, and he was already braced for Charles's inevitable anger. Instead, the man sat down (in the farthest possible seat from Shay, but still) and shook his head.

"I don't know what to make of my mind anymore," he said. "I hate the man you are in another world, but that's not you. I hope."

"It's not."

"I have a son that isn't my son," Charles went on. "A boy that looks like me, but isn't mine and doesn't want me."

"He doesn't look like you anymore," Shay said. He didn't know if that was supposed to make things better or worse, but Charles looked relieved. Like Shay had just lifted some burden of responsibility off his shoulders.

"What does he look like, then?" Charles asked.

"Like me."

Charles nodded. "I can't say I'm surprised," he said. "Maybe I'm—I'm glad."

"Glad?" Shay asked. "You haven't trusted me since you woke up from your coma."

"And now I know why," Charles said. "It's a relief, honestly. I could never figure out why I thought you were bad news. Now I know I must have been thinking of the other you."

"I'm not him."

"You're not. And Arno trusts you," Charles agreed. "He's not… he's not _my_ son. But he is a good person, and he trusts you. You're good for each other."

"And you?" Shay kept his eyes on Charles, and the shadows of another world dancing around him as visions. "What would be good for you."

Charles sighed. "I just want to go home."

"You—" Shay's breath caught in his throat as a new vision, bright and clear against the pale flickers that had come before them, suddenly lit up the room. And it shouldn't have been possible, but _there it was_. "You will."

And if Charles could get home, maybe it wasn't too late for Hope.

-/-

Arno had no idea where he was going until he was almost there, and then he didn't know why he was surprised. Because they were trying to find a way into another world, and Arno was vaguely aware that Shay had been working with some team at work to figure out what was going on with his powers. The powers he _used_ to have. (Part of Arno's mind wandered off on a tangent at this point, thinking about how Shay had basically traded in a million universes for being psychics, and how this time Arno would get to help him figure out how everything worked. He pulled himself firmly back onto track. There were other things to worry about at the moment).

Like breaking into the mage tower where Shay worked. It was no good trying to walk in the front door, the guy at the front desk now was nowhere near as understanding as Gist had been when Arno was a kid. He'd hold things up and delay until it was way too late. Arno used the deliveries entrance around the back, holding his breath against the harsh smells of chemicals and magical plants stored in this part of the tower.

An electronic keypad blocked Arno's way onward, but _yes,_ psychic, and it only held him back for a few moments. Then he was running upstairs, all the way to the lab where Shay worked these days. It wasn't empty, he'd known it wouldn't be, but crowded with people.

Arno looked to Altair first, the most familiar to him out of everyone. "Hey," he said. Then—because the confused looks the others were giving him had abruptly reminded Arno that he looked different now—he added, "I'm Arno."

"What happened to you?" Altair demanded, and Arno shook his head. He

"Doesn't matter."

"Why are you here?" Altair asked. He looked tired, and Arno thought with a twinge of guilt about what Altair must be going through at home. Kadar's burial. Malik's grief. It was a wonder he'd managed to come into work at all. Maybe this was how he coped, maybe he couldn't be around his family at the moment. Whatever the reason, Arno simply chose to be grateful.

"Because—" he took a deep breath, praying that they would believe him, then went on all in a rush. "Shay lost all the universes inside his head, but apparently the Hope in this world is a psycho mass murderer that's supposed to be in another universe but got switched with the one from here and we need to put them back. I had a vision that I was supposed to come here so please, _please_ tell me one of you knows a way to help."

He stood there, panting slightly, until the woman next to Altair (oh, and the visions Arno got from looking at the two of _them_ , doing things together that made Arno turn bright red) nods. "We were close to finding a way into other worlds a little while ago," she says. "But when we went to Shay, he told us to stop looking. He said it was dangerous."

"Oh. So you—you don't know how to do it?"

"Well." The other woman in the room, darker, with a smile like the Cheshire Cat, crossed her arms and leaned back against a work table. "Nobody ever really thought about listening to him."

"So you do know—"

"We can get you wherever you need to go," Connor says firmly, from a far corner of the room. "What about Shay?"

"He's busy adjusting to being psychic," Arno said. Then, as everyone opened their mouths more or less at the same time, added—"Don't ask why he's psychic. Just help me. Please?"

A moment of silence, and then Altair's friend nodded. "Come with me," she said. "We'll get you where you need to go."


	38. Chapter 38

Arno's first thought on getting safely to the new universe was—well, that wasn't so hard. His next thought, hot on the heels of the first and with far more urgency, was _oh shit_. He froze, staring at the man in front of him and trying to figure out the appropriate response to meeting himself.

There was no doubt at all that this was the Arno from this world—he was wearing the same face that had looked back out of the mirror at Arno every day of his life (well, every day until today, but that was a whole separate issue). His was just a little older, that was all.

"Who are you?" the other Arno asked, and Arno felt his breath catch. What was he supposed to say? 'I'm you from another world, I just don't look all that much like you anymore because earlier today I had to take this potion to save my best friend from being magically lobotomized by his pissed off ex-girlfriend?' Sure. Arno had lived it and he still knew it sounded crazy.

"I'm…" Suddenly, Arno was grateful for the strangeness of his own voice. "It doesn't matter who I am. But I need to see Shay Cormac." Because he had no idea what to do or how to save Hope, but Shay would know. Even if he was different from Arno's Shay. Even if he wouldn't know Arno, or… he _would_ , but he'd know the Arno that belonged to this world…

Arno's head started to hurt, and he stopped trying to think about it. Alternate universes weren't his thing. He just needed to pretend they were long enough to help Shay's girlfriend and go home. (And… then what? If Desmond had listened to Arno, bad Hope would be taken care of by now, and there wouldn't be anything to stop things from… going back to normal? What did that even mean, for people like them?)

"You can't," the other Arno said. He still looked decidedly suspicious.

"You do know who he is, don't you?" Arno asked.

"Sure. He's my boss, I saw him ten minutes ago."

"So you know where he is!"

"Yea, but—"

"Then what's the matter?" Arno demanded.

"He's a little busy just now," the other Arno said. "With the execution."

"Hope's?" Arno asked, and he only waited long enough for the answering nod before swearing, with what must have seemed like inappropriate enthusiasm. He'd thought there was more time left before the execution, but maybe time didn't move consistently between universes (that would at least explain why this Arno was several years older). Or maybe Arno had just been wrong—he'd had a lot to take in during the last few hours, after all. "She's being executed now?"

"Well—" Other Arno paused to check his watch. "In about fifteen minutes, as soon as all the legal formalities are taken care of."

"We have to save her," Arno said. His visions had spazzed a little when he first dropped into this world, but now they were beginning to settle, and that would have to be good enough. He looked around—they were on a street in some city he didn't recognize. But the visions were pointing him onward with the same relentless certainty as they had back home, and so Arno turned and hurried in the appropriate direction.

"Why?" other Arno called. He cursed quietly and hurried after. "Slow down!"

"Get in shape!" Arno shouted back. Then—"Hope's innocent. At least, this version is, the evil one's in a different universe and I don't know if we can bring her back here, but _this_ one needs to not be executed." He stopped at the corner just before crossing a street, and spun around to glare. " _Alright_?"

"How did you even know about that other worlds thing?" other Arno demanded, when he caught up.

"I'm from that world," Arno said.

"Really?"

"I swear on… I don't know, whatever you people swear on here. Just _help_ me."

And the other Arno nodded and grabbed him by the arm. "Come on," he said. "There's not a lot of time left."

-/-

Shay only found out where Arno had gone when Aveline called him about it.

"You sent him into another world?" Shay demanded, when she had explained everything.

"He wanted to—"

"It's dangerous," Shay protested. "Unless you've been testing this behind my back."

"No," she said, without even a hint of apology. "Just researching it."

"Aveline!"

"Shay!" She sighed heavily. "Listen, it's a good thing we did, if Arno was telling the truth about saving Hope."

"I need to be there," Shay said. "With him."

"Are you up for that?" Aveline asked doubtfully. "I heard something about you being psychic now."

"Well, yes," he admitted. "But I know I can do this. And I have to, so that's pretty much that." Besides. The visions weren't too bad, as long as he kept his eyes closed.

"Fine," Aveline said. "If you can get out here, I'll help you get to that other world. And, you know. Back. When you're done."

"I'll be there," Shay promised, and hung up.

The problem, of course, was that he had no idea how to get across town when he kept seeing things that weren't there, or at least weren't there yet. Driving was out of the question, and walking simply wasn't fast enough. He was only just starting to worry when the doorbell rang.

Shay's vision spazzed and blurred for a second, before settling into a vision of Ezio on the other side. And he didn't know why the other man was there, but from the illogical feeling of relief that came with the vision, Shay felt safe in assuming Ezio must be there to help. He didn't hear Charles anywhere around, so Shay went to answer the door himself.

And sure enough, there was Ezio on the other side, broad smile almost bisecting his face. "Shay!" he said, and caught Shay up in an enthusiastic hug. "I had a vision that you were one of us now, and I thought I must be losing it."

"Ezio—"

"But no! Here you are, blue eyed and everything."

"How did you even know I was me?" Shay asked. "I feel like I haven't done anything since that potion but try to convince people who I am." And worry about Hope. And Arno.

"Well. Psychic."

"Of course," Shay grumbled. "Can't wait until I start seeing actually _useful_ things instead of random crap." Then he remembered the feeling of relief that had come with the vision of Ezio's arrival, and frowned. "Speaking of which, you wouldn't be here to help me, would you?"

"Well, I came because I had to hear why you were suddenly psychic and different looking and also not getting lobotomized, but if you need help I'd be glad to give it."

Shay nodded enthusiastically. "Yes," he said. "I need a ride to work."

"Work?" Ezio repeated. " _Now_?"

"So the people there can help me get into another universe and save—" There wasn't enough time to explain Hope. "Someone important."

"Oh, well. In that case."

And Ezio didn't hesitate for so much as a second before grabbing Shay by the arm and tugging him toward his car. They didn't talk much on the way out, apart from the very beginning. Then maybe he noticed the way Shay was rubbing at his temples and wincing.

"You alright?" he asked

"I feel like I'm being attacked by all these visions," Shay admitted. "It's just one right after another, all the time. Is that _normal_ , or—"

"Considering you're the only person in history to become psychic later in life, I wouldn't say there's any normal to compare you to."

"Great," Shay muttered. "Perfect, yes. Exactly what I wanted to hear just now."

"Well I wasn't going to lie to you," Ezio said. "Listen, just… close your eyes, alright?"

"I feel like an idiot," Shay grumbled, as he did what he was told. "And I'm going to need them open at some point."

"I know," Ezio said. "But there's no reason to force yourself to see all these visions at once if you don't need to, and it's not like you're the one driving."

Shay nodded, and the rest of the trip went by in darkness, and silence. When they finally arrived, Shay thanked Ezio and nearly ran out of the car and into the building. Then upward, toward his team, toward whatever way they had found to access other worlds, toward Arno and Hope and the place he needed to be just now.

-/-

Arno followed his other self into a stone building that practically screamed unhappiness and death. Or maybe that was just how it seemed to his supernaturally heightened senses. "This is where they do the executions?"

"Yes," the other Arno agreed. "In the basement."

"Then that's where I'm going," Arno said firmly.

"Listen, kid." He bit his lip, and to Arno, the expression spelled out his mood as clearly as if the older man had simply said it aloud. _You're nuts_ and _I can't let you go running off to do something stupid._ It was so eerie to see his own expressions mirrored on another person's face, and Arno wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the feeling.

"I'm not a kid," he said, before his other self could gear up for the lecture he seemed to be readying himself for. "I know what I'm doing, and I know how to take care of myself!"

"I thought you wanted to be taken to Shay," the other Arno protested, a bit feebly in the face of the conviction he had unexpectedly being confronted with.

"And he'll be with Hope, won't he?" Arno asked. "In the basement?"

"Well, yes. But what are you going to do when you get there? And _how_ are you going to get there? There are cops down there, you know! This is the execution of a really infamous criminal, the media are trying to get in, members of the public are trying to get in, family of the victims are trying to get in—you won't manage it!"

"I will!"

" _How_?"

Arno sighed and pointed to a nearby door. "That door leads to a set of stairs that go down to the basement. It's not secured, because there's three locked doors between that part of the basement and the execution room, or whatever it's called. The first one opens with a keycard, and one of the security guards left his in the bathroom yesterday. The second one has a code—it's 35218. The third one…" he looked back at the door, frowning at his visions. "That one's going to be a little harder to get past. But I'll manage it."

"And you know all this because..?"

"Because I'm psychic," Arno said, and took off running for the door to the stairs before his other self could answer. And that exit would have been really cool, he thought (bitterly), it would have gone over really _well_ , if only he hadn't tripped halfway to the door and fallen flat on his face.

Well. That happened.

He got up with as much dignity as he could possibly muster, felt his face to make sure nothing was broken or bleeding, and walked the rest of the far more slowly. No one moved to stop him, possibly just because they were too surprised to move. Arno ignored them all, hurrying toward the stairs (and Shay, and Hope).

The stairs were simple enough to get down, and the first two doors opened easily, exactly as Arno had foreseen him. Then came the third door. Arno checked it out for a second, making sure he'd seen things right. He made a face. Yep. Still as bad as it had looked from upstairs. Arno slid into place against the wall, a foot or so away from the door, and tried to steady his erratic breathing.

No more than two minutes passed before a guard opened the door from the other side. He was talking loudly into a walkie talkie, and Arno waited until the conversation was over before lunging out of the shadows. He hit the guard, hard, and the man went down with a bump on his head before he'd had time to say so much as a single word. Arno stuck his foot between the door and its frame to keep it from closing, then felt for the guard's pulse. Strong and steady. Good. He opened the door the rest of the way and stepped through, into the execution room.

-/-

Shay found himself suddenly in a cold, white room half filled with people, and for a second he does nothing but try to process things. This was not a room he had ever been to before, but he knew in an instant that this was the right place.

The room is arranged in a kind of circle, amphitheater style, around a metal table with a woman strapped to it. Shay knew her, recognized her at once, but didn't want to. Because that was his Hope, lying there, and this was the room where she was to be killed.

"No," Shay hissed, and the man at his side jumps a little and turns to look at him. Shay realized it was himself, and feels far calmer about this realization than he should. It didn't even matter, not compared to everything else.

"Who—"

People were turning to look at the two Shays now, and Shay didn't think it could possibly be much longer before someone figured out which of them wasn't supposed to be there, and then he would be kicked out, and then…

Shay bolted, running as fast as he could toward Hope. People were shouting, and Shay could hear what sounded like guards calling after him to come back _or else_ , but there was nothing in the world that could stop him just now. He slid to a stop at Hope's side, and took hold of her hand. "Hope," he said. "Hope, it's me."

"Shay?" They must have given her something already—anesthesia, tranquilizers, something, because she smiled up at Hope with an almost dreamy expression on her face. "You came."

"Yes."

"To watch me die?"

"No! God no, Hope. To rescue you."

A hand grabbed Shay on the shoulder, and started pulling him away—it occurred to him, suddenly, that maybe he shouldn't have come here without some kind of a plan. He didn't know what to do, his entire mind had gone blank, and then he heard the sound of a fist connecting with the side of someone's face. Shay turned around, still holding Hope's hand, and there was Arno, fighting his way through the crowds of guards to get to Shay and Hope. He got there in the end, and planted himself firmly in front of the other two.

"I told you to stay at home," Arno said, glancing back at Shay.

"I don't listen well."

"Nope!"

There were more people coming, and Arno could fight (well, even), but there were at least a dozen men with guns heading toward them, and Shay highly doubted Arno would be able to do anything about them. "What do we do now?"

"Can she move?" Arno asked, gesturing behind him at Hope. Shay glanced down and shook his head.

"Not right now," he said. "I don't think so."

"Okay." Arno turned back to them (a brave gesture under the circumstances, with well armed men converging on them). "Then I guess it's all up to your team to pull us back home."

"Don't you have any way to signal them?" Altair asked desperately.

"How do you signal someone in another world?" Arno asked.

"So they might not get us out in time?" Shay demanded.

"Didn't they explain all this to you when they sent you?"

"I wasn't listening!"

The men were no more than a dozen steps away from the trio that now huddled together against the metal table, and to make matters worse, Shay's visions were starting to react to his fear, a hundred slices of the future bursting into existence around him. None particularly relevant at the moment, which Shay was grateful for. He wasn't sure what he would do if he'd seen them killing Hope. Or Arno. Or him.

"Arno…" he whispered, and Arno must have realized what was going on because he just took Shay's hand and squeezed, echoing the advice Ezio had given Shay earlier.

"Close your eyes," he whispered. "Don't look." And he said it again and again, like a mantra, until Shay gave in and closed his eyes. "Don't look, don't look, don't look…"

And then a sharp intake of breath, and Arno laughed in what sounded like relief. "Alright," he said, hugging Shay abruptly. "Now you can look."

He opened one eye first, and then the other. The cold, bare room was gone, replaced by the familiar surroundings of the lab in the mage's tower where he worked. And Arno was there, of course and so was Hope. "Oh," Shay whispered. "Thank God."

Hope was on the floor, collapsed without the table to hold her up. Shay crouched down next to her, cradling her in his arms. "Please be alright," he begged. "Hope, please…"

She opened her eyes, gaze still looking fuzzy from whatever they'd drugged her with. It sharpened a bit when she saw Shay. And she smiled. It had been so long since he'd seen that smile…

"Shay," she said. "Are we home?"

"We're home," he promised. "And Hope, there's someone I want you to meet." He reached up, tugging on Arno until he crouched down as well. "Hope, this is Arno. Arno, Hope. And you two…" his throat was closing up, so that it was almost impossible to get any words out. Shay fought through it, because he wanted to say this. "You two are the most important people in the world to me. I'm so… so _glad_ you finally got to meet."

 **-/-**

 **Getting really close to the end now, people. :)**


	39. Chapter 39

They didn't leave the tower for twenty four hours, for two reasons. First, Hope wasn't quite ready to face things yet. For over a decade, her entire world had been made up of her tiny cell, the equally small visiting room, and the windowless hallway connecting them. She was doing her best to keep her head up and stay brave, but as soon as the drugs wore off, Shay could tell she was afraid.

That was okay. He was a little afraid too. Because... everything was coming up right. He might just get the happy ending that had been so unattainable since the day he first had his accident. It was _so close_ , but every other time he'd almost managed to be happy, it had been snatched away at the last minute.

"Shay?"

"Hmm?"

By this point, he and Hope were huddled on the floor of the lab together, curled up and hunched over. The rest of his team were on the other end of the lab (he'd almost sent them home, before a particular vision had led him to tell them to stay a while, instead).

But Arno was right there next to them, of course. "Why do you look like something bad just happened?"

"Force of habit," Shay admitted.

"But we won," Arno said.

Hope looks up at him, and Arno smiles nervously. "We won," Hope repeated. "We—wait, Shay."

"What?"

"Don't I own you in this world, or something?"

"Um… yes." He frowned. "I guess that problem hasn't gone away."

"Hope can just not do anything with you though, right?" Arno asked.

"I don't really want to be owned," Shay said. "Either way."

Hope looked at Arno and held out her hand. "Give me your phone," she said, with just a hint of her old authority.

"What?"

"Phone," she repeated. "And—the number for whatever judge was stupid enough to let that even go to trial."

Arno handed her his phone with the number already dialed. "What are you going to do?"

"Demand a retrial," she said. "I'll figure some reason or other. I've certainly heard enough of them in that other world, waiting on death row. Then when the verdict falls through and we go to retrial, I'll make sure to lose. Or something. It'll work out, Shay."

"Oh." Shay tapped her on the shoulder as she held the phone up to her ear. It was so great to see her come alive again, solving problems and taking charge the way she always had when they were in school. "Make sure you mention the jury was blackmailed."

"Were they?"

"I'm pretty sure the other you did it."

"Ah."

He kissed her on the top of the head as she started in on an angry sounding tirade, and got up, pulling Arno aside. "So," he said nervously. "I had a vision—"

"I think I saw the same one," Arno agreed. "The other Hope?" Shay nodded, and Arno glanced at the door.

"How do you know when a vision is going to take place?" Shay asked. "I mean—is Hope coming soon? Or later?"

Arno shrugged. "Visions don't come with a time stamp," he said. "You just have to look at what's in it, try to figure out the when and the where based on what you see. But I think Desmond and William will bring Hope soon."

"Why?"

"Because." He grinned and pointed at the door. "I can hear people coming up the stairs."

Shay barely even had time to get nervous before _there they were_. Desmond and William, carrying the unconscious Hope (together) between them. Maybe taking out a homicidal maniac from another universe was the kind of thing that brought people together, because they didn't look as angry as they usually did. They almost seemed to be getting along. Sort of, anyway. Shay smiled a little.

And then he smiled more, as his team converged on Hope without him even having to say anything, as he watched them just… send her away. Like it wasn't even a big deal, like she was just some annoying fly they were swatting away. He was just standing in the middle of the room with Arno at his side, watching them at work, when Hope approached from the other side. Took his hand.

"That's it," she said. "Isn't it? It's over. She'll go back to her world, and they'll find her. She's only the most notorious criminal in the past decade. And we both know how impossible it was to get me off the murder charge. She won't be able to either. She will die, and it will be kinder than she deserves."

"But you…" He smiled and kissed her. "You will live."

-/-

Arno took Shay and Hope home with him. Charles wouldn't mind, and he wanted them with him. Or Shay, anyway. He still wasn't sure about Hope. But he wanted to be sure, he wanted to like her because Shay liked her, and he didn't have to be psychic to know where _their_ relationship was going. In fact, now that the crisis was over, Arno had dialed back on the visions he saw, back to more normal levels. It was dangerous to go around seeing the entire future all the time—no reason to risk it without a compelling reason.

Which might have been why he didn't realize Hope was coming to see him until she was right there at his side. "Oh," he said, coloring slightly. "I was thinking, sorry. I didn't hear you."

"What were you thinking about?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Lots of things. You… you like Shay, don't you?"

"Oh yes."

"And you want to stay with him?"

"Forever, if possible," Hope said. Her voice was absolutely matter of fact, but warm as well. It was the kind of voice Arno hoped Elise would one day use to talk to him, if they stayed together long enough. She sounded like she was in love. But-

"I love Shay too," Arno said. "He's like a father to me."

"I know," Hope said. "He's mentioned you. Once or twice or—half a hundred times, really."

"I want to stay with him too," Arno said. "So I guess you and I are going to have to learn to live with each other too."

"Well, that shouldn't be too hard. After all, Shay is important to both of us."

"So let's start there." Arno smiled at her. "Tell me how you two met?"

They talked for hours, and only stopped when Shay came up to the pair of them. His hair looked all out of place, like he'd been sleeping. Well, he deserved it. His half open eyes were bright, icy blue beneath his eyelids, and it gave Arno a thrill of excitement to see them. All his life, eyes like that had marked him out as different, and no one but Ezio had ever been able to understand what that was like. Now Shay had the same eyes; they were the same, they could both be on the outside together and then it would be like not being on the outside at all.

Arno didn't think, he just got up and hugged Shay. "Thank you," he whispered. "For being here. For paying attention to me when I was a kid and no one else would. Thank you for setting my whole life on the right track. If you hadn't come into my life, I don't know where I'd be right now. Thank you for caring about me."

"I love you, Arno," Shay said simply. "I never did anything for you that I feel I deserve to be thanked for. If anything, I always felt like I was being selfish for wanting so much of you."

"Shut up," Arno mumbled, around his enormous smile. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Hope, and saw her looking at the pair of them. "Do you want in on this?" he asked.

"I'm not sure…"

"Hope," Shay said, and she didn't even try to argue. She got up without a word and wrapped herself up with the pair of them. Arno, sandwiched between her and Shay, closed his eyes and thought of all the things he'd dreamed of in the long, lonely years of his childhood. Of a family. Of Shay. All of that was about to come true.

Arno ducked his head a little, so they wouldn't see him cry, so they wouldn't think he was sad when really he was happier than he had ever been before.

-/-

But there was one more thing that had to be taken care of, Arno eventually remembered; Charles. Charles, who was still floating around the house like a ghost, quiet and out of place in this place and this time. After a week of this, Arno went to Shay and asked if they could send him home.

"It is possible, isn't it?" he asked. "We sent Hope back."

"It's possible." Shay agreed, without even a moment of hesitation. "I'm sure it is. Have you asked him if he wants to go, though?"

Arno hadn't, not yet. But when he sat down and broached the subject with Charles, he got an enthusiastic "yes" in response. And maybe that felt a little strange, to look at his father's face and know that soon he would never be able to see it again. Arno had never exactly had a great relationship with his father, not even when his father really _was_ his father. It had only gotten worse with this version of the man.

Still. It would be strange to know he would never see his father's face again.

Maybe that was why he insisted on going with Charles, just to make sure he got back safe.

"He'll be fine," Shay said.

"I—just want to go with," Arno mumbled. "It won't hurt anything, will it?"

"No. But I'm just having trouble understanding—"

"I want to see my father's grave," Arno blurted, flushing and turning away. "Just once."

He didn't need to see Shay's face to know there was pity on it; he could feel it in the hand Shay put on his shoulder, and hear it in his voice when he finally agreed. And he didn't want to be pitied, but at least there were no more arguments about whether he should be allowed to go.

This transition to this universe was far less chaotic than the other universe Arno had visited. Which was saying something, as that world was in the middle of the French Revolution. But it was sort of distant, from the place where Arno and Charles arrived.

"Do you know where to go from here?" Arno asked.

Charles nodded. "Do you?"

"Not so much," Arno admitted.

"Come on," Charles said.

"Wait—how do _you_ know where you're buried?"

"I know where my parents are buried," Charles said. "That's where I… that's where your father will be buried."

"Thank you," Arno said, and then neither of them said anything else until they reached the cemetery. And the grave with the name _Charles Dorian_ chiseled into the stone. Arno stared at it, tried to speak around the lump in his throat, and couldn't.

"Will you be alright?" Charles asked.

"Yes," Arno said. He tore his eyes away from the grave. "Where are you going from here?"

"Home," Charles said. "I don't even know how many years I've missed here. I need to catch up."

"Will you find this world's Arno?" Arno asked.

"I—maybe." Charles looked conflicted. "He's not really my son either. Not when your father had him after we switched places."

"But I think…" Arno bit his lip. "You thought you were him. Maybe he thought he was you. And… I just think you should look for him at least, okay?"

"Okay," Charles agreed quietly. He hugged Arno, stiffly, and then stepped back. "Goodbye."

"Bye…" Arno echoed, as Charles walked away and out of his sight for the last time.

He'd asked Shay to give him a few hours in this world. He wanted to take his time at the grave.

"Dad," Arno said. "I…" he cleared his throat, looked away, then finally looked back at the grave. "Look, I know we never got along well. But I'm still sorry things turned out the way they did. Maybe if you hadn't been taken away, we would have gotten closer. Maybe… I don't know."

He was sitting cross legged on the dirt in front of the headstone by now, and when he reached forward to touch it, his hand was trembling. "But you can't change the past, right? And I didn't come back to talk about what could have been. I just wanted to say… I'm sorry. And I do love you. I'll miss you. And… and goodbye."

He let his hand drop, but it was steady now. He took a single, shaky breath, and let it out—then almost choked on his next breath as someone dropped onto the dirt to sit next to him. And of course (Arno felt something like resignation at the sight) that someone was him. Or this world's version of him, anyway. He looked maybe two or three years older than Arno, and was dressed in some kind of hooded blue robe, although the hood was pushed down at the moment. There was a moment of blank silence, and then the other Arno said, "He was your father too?"

His English was not quite as uncertain as Arno's French, although Arno couldn't stop thinking how strange it was to hear his own voice with that heavy accent.

"I…" He really didn't want to talk about other worlds right now. Still, the other Arno seemed to take this as some kind of confirmation.

"Oh." He frowned. "I never knew father was… that he… with other women, I mean."

Arno's face twitched into a smile for a second. Apparently the other Arno thought their father had been fooling around, and Arno was the bastard outcome of that. Well, all things considered, it was probably easier to let him go on believing it. Still, he felt a confused need to defend his father. "Not a lot, though," he said.

"Still," the other Arno said, sounding distressed. "I…" he let out a breath. "Never mind."

"Never mind?"

"I didn't know I had a brother," the other Arno said. "Even a half-brother. I didn't know I had any family left at all. It's nice to meet you."

He nodded. "You too, I… I think."

They lapsed into silence, with only the distant, chaotic noises of revolution to break the quiet. Arno caught himself thinking how strange that was, to be smack in the middle of a war that had never been anything but a distant, not particularly relevant history to him. And he thought about how that wasn't even the strangest part of this scene. After a while, the other Arno asked, "Did you know him?"

"Not well," Arno said, which was as true as anything else. "He wasn't ever around, really."

"That's too bad," the other Arno said. "He was a good father. The best…"

"Really?" That didn't sound much like the dad he remembered.

"He was always there for me," the other Arno said. " _Always,_ no matter what. He told me once that he'd made mistakes before. He didn't want to repeat them by running off and leaving me alone."

"That's good," Arno whispered. "That's… that's good."

"I'm sure he cared about you too," the other Arno said.

"In his own confused way," Arno muttered. Not that this conversation wasn't confusing all on its own.

The other Arno smiled a little. "He was a really good person," he said. "And a great father. I'm sorry you don't remember him the way I do."

"It's okay," Arno said, and he was surprised to realize that he meant it. His father had tried his best with him, and then he'd come here, and had his second chance, and fixed his mistakes. He had died, but at least he had died a good man, with a son that thought the world of him. And Arno had gotten Shay, so it wasn't like he felt like he'd lost out on anything.

"Anyway." The other Arno said. He stood and Arno followed him. "I need to be going."

"Goodbye," Arno said.

"Don't say it so formally," the other Arno laughed. "We'll see each other again, I hope."

"Maybe," Arno said. "You wouldn't believe how far I had to come to get here in the first place."

"You speak English," the other Arno said. "Are you from England?"

"America."

"Wow," the other Arno said. "That _is_ a long way."

Arno smiled to himself. If only you knew, he thought. If only you had any idea about other worlds, and where our dad really came from.

The other Arno had already turned to go when Arno called him back. "Hey!" he called. "Wait!"

"What?"

"You… you should go home," Arno said.

"Why?"

Because that was where Charles was going. Home. And as messed up as all this was, he could see that the other Arno desperately missed his father. Maybe Charles wasn't entirely sure he was ready to be a father, but… screw it. He needed to try. If the other Arno suddenly showed up and surprised him, and assuming they didn't both drop dead from the shock, at least they'd be forced to try and make a family.

And Arno had a feeling it would all work out. Charles had never tried to hurt Arno, even when he was confused over who he really was. He'd loved him, in his own way. And this other Arno _adored_ his father. Everything would work out, one way or another.

The other Arno was still waiting for an explanation, but Arno didn't want to ruin the surprise. "Just go," he said. "I promise, it'll be worth it."

The other Arno shrugged, then said "Sure. Why not?"

"Good."

And then the other Arno was gone, and the world dissolved around Arno as he headed back, and home, to his own world.

Back to Shay. To Shay, and Hope, and Elise. To Ezio, and Leonardo, and Desmond. The other Arno could have this world's Charles, and be happy with him. Arno had his own family, and he couldn't imagine anything better.

 **-/-**

 **Just a last few loose ends to tie up- the next chapter will probably be the last one.**


	40. Chapter 40

**Six Months Later**

 **-/-**

"Arno!" Shay shouted. "Arno, hurry up, you'll be late!"

"I will not!" The shout drifted down the stairs from Arno's room, followed by a thud and a muffled curse. Shay grinned.

"Do you need help up there?"

"Tuxedos are stupid!" Arno shouted down.

"It could be worse," Hope called. She was in the kitchen, working on some kind of potion. "Elise is the one that has to wear the dress."

"No," Shay said, dropping his voice only slightly. "Elise is the one that wears the pants in their relationship."

"Hey!" Arno called. "I _heard_ that!"

"Then finish dressing and get out of here!" Shay shouted up at him.

There were several loud bangs and another curse from Arno's room, and it took Shay some considerable effort to hide his laughter. "Don't," Hope scolded him, flicking some water toward Shay. At least, he hoped it was water. Hard to tell, considering he didn't know what potion she was working on. She had refused to tell him when he asked, and Shay didn't really want to push. This was the first time she had tried doing anything with magic since coming home. Shay couldn't exactly blame her; she had certainly been traumatized enough by being trapped there, by Shay's magic.

"Don't what?" he asked, and enjoyed the teasing look she gave him in response.

"Don't tease Arno," she said. "It's a big night for him."

"I know," Shay said, getting up and walking over to her. "That's exactly why I do it."

"Shay…" she hit him lightly on the shoulder, and he kissed her in response. Just because he could. Because Hope had moved in with him and Arno five months ago, and Shay hadn't yet gotten over the novelty of sharing a home and a life with the woman he loved. His hands drifted downward, holding her close, and she didn't resist even as Shay pressed one hand against the slight bump in her stomach.

"Can you feel the baby yet?" he asked her.

"Not yet," she said. "You know I'll tell you when I do."

"I'm just excited," Shay said.

"You haven't been looking, have you?" Hope asked, pulling back from him a little and frowning. She didn't want to know anything about the baby before it was born, and had banned both Shay and Arno from trying to see visions of him or her. Arno didn't seem to have any trouble with it, but Shay was still new enough to being psychic that it was a struggle for him. Still, he'd been managing well enough so far, and was more than a little proud of himself. The visions were getting easier to manage all the time, thanks to Arno and Ezio.

"I haven't even peeked," Shay said. "Scout's honor."

"You were never a scout." But she laughed at him anyway, and Shay knew he would do anything for that laugh. To hear her happy again.

Arno came running down the stairs just then (pausing long enough to make pointed gagging sounds at their kiss), and held up one polished black dress shoe. "Have either of you seen the other one?" he asked.

"Nope," Shay said, and Arno groaned.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked. "I can't show up with one shoe!"

"Calm down," Shay said. "Sit down, breathe—"

"I'm breathing!"

"I'll go double check your room," Shay said. "Maybe you need a second pair of eyes."

-/-

Arno watched Shay go, then peeked sideways at Hope. He'd been banned from having visions of his little sister until she was actually born, technically. But he'd slipped up once, and ever since then he couldn't stop himself from looking every chance he got. He couldn't wait to actually see her, hold her the way he did in his visions. The little family he had now, Shay and Hope and himself, it was great in and of itself. But the baby could only make things better.

"Arno," Hope said. "You're not looking, are you?"

"Nope," he lied.

"Hmm." She smiled at him, like she knew, but didn't say anything else. Arno smiled back, only a little reluctantly. He'd known Shay practically all his life, but he was still getting used to Hope. He did like her, he liked that she was smart and tough and also not a psychopathic killer. That was a nice bonus.

The doorbell rang and Arno felt himself freeze. Okay. Okay, so that was Elise. At the door. He should go answer the door. Or something.

His legs, unhelpfully, refused to move.

"Are you going to get that?" Hope asked from the kitchen.

Arno made a noise that definitely wasn't a word, and Hope laughed at him. "Are you scared of your girlfriend?" she asked, just as Shay came back downstairs.

"Shoe," he said, tossing the shoe at Arno. "And—" he looked over at Hope. "All intelligent men are afraid of their girlfriends."

"This isn't the right shoe," Arno said, turning it over in his hands as Hope grinned at Shay.

"Can't you wear it anyway?" Shay asked.

"It doesn't match the other one."

"They're both black, isn't that good enough?"

"They're both for the left foot!" Arno protested, and Hope doubled over laughing at him. "Hope!"

Elise, apparently tired of being kept waiting on the front step, opened the door to let herself in. "Okay," she said, looking at Hope laughing and Arno staring morosely at his mismatched shoes. "Clearly, I'm missing something."

"Arno's having a wardrobe malfunction," Shay explained, and Arno held up his shoes in silent explanation.

"Hmm," Elise said. She walked over and kissed Arno briefly, which made him feel a little better, then examined the shoes with a frown that made him feel a little worse. "How did you lose two right shoes?"

"Well if I knew that…"

"You could just wear them both," Elise suggested. "Then you'll have an excuse if it turns out you dance with two left feet."

"I'm a good dancer," Arno said, with confidence. Not that he expected to be doing much dancing tonight.

"Well, then." She reached into the large bag at her side, and pulled out one of Arno's shoes. "One of the many things you still have to come by my house and collect."

"You had it the whole time!" Arno said.

"Yea, well." She smirked at him. "Come get the rest of your junk."

"We could do that instead tonight," Arno suggested. "If it's really that important to you…"

"Absolutely not," Elise said firmly. She waited just long enough for Arno to put his shoes on before she pulled him to his feet. "This is the only senior prom either of us will ever get. We're going."

"Might as well," Arno said. "I mean, you went to all the trouble of finding a beautiful dress, we might as well go show off in front of all our classmates."

She laughed, but the way her face tinted pink told Arno she was pleased by the compliment. "I didn't think you noticed."

"Of course I noticed. It looks almost as nice as you."

"Mmm." Elise smiled. "We should get out of here before I do something inappropriate to you in front of Shay."

"Right." He glanced at his watch. "And we're going to be late anyway."

Shay and Hope's teasing catcalls followed them out the front door, so that both of them were bright red by the time they got to the driveway. Then, alone in the darkness, they looked at each other and laughed.

-/-

They never actually made it to prom. Arno spotted Bellec staking out the entrance, clearly itching for a fight, and after a hurried consultation, they decided on an alternate plan.

They ended up on _top_ of prom.

The building that had been rented out for the night was large and flat, and easily accessed by a ladder around the back. Elise needed a little bit of help with her dress, but in the end they got up there. From this height, the lights on the cars passing by on the street below looked like stars, and the world seemed almost peaceful.

"Well this isn't exactly what I thought would happen tonight," Elise said, sitting down next to Arno.

"Me neither."

"But I suppose it's not so bad." The night was warm, and when Elise leaned back against Arno, she was warm too. So were her lips, when she tilted her head to kiss Arno. "I'm glad we get to be alone at least."

He nodded, reluctantly. It wasn't fun to think about how few nights they might have left together. "Are you sure you have to go to college in the fall?"

"Are you sure _you_ don't want to come with me?" she asked.

"I'm sure," Arno said firmly. "And anyway, applications were due months ago, they'd never take me now."

"You're a psychic," Elise pointed out. "Half a dozen college recruiters would shit their pants if they thought they had a chance of getting you at their schools. They'd put you on all the recruitment brochures."

"Ew," Arno grumbled, and Elise laughed. "But really—college will always be there. It'll be there in August, and it'll be there a few years from now. But my little sister's only going to be born once, and I want to be here for that. I want to be here for the first few months of her life, at least."

"But what are you going to do?" Elise asked doubtfully. "Just kick around the house for a year or two? Get a part time job flipping burgers at McDonalds?"

"You'll laugh," Arno said.

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"Arno!" She swatted at his arm and _he_ laughed instead. "Just tell me."

"I want to do something," he said. "I don't know what, exactly, but I've been so lucky in my life, you know? If I hadn't met Shay when I was a kid, everything would have been different. But I _did_ meet him, and… and here we are. And when I go home tonight, I'm going back to a real family. People that love me. How many kids are there out in the world that never met their Shay?"

"You think you can do something?" Elise asked.

"I think I should try," Arno said. "Dad…" as ever, a little pang of remorse shot through him as he remembered his father. But his dad was dead, and with Charles back in his own world, hopefully with that universe's version of Arno, it had become possible to mourn. Little by little, he was moving on. "He wasn't the greatest father, but he was always running off to other parts of the world to make things better for people. I think I can make things better for people right here at home, if I really try. And I mean… I'm psychic. So far, I haven't been able to use that to help anyone but me, and the people around me. Maybe it's time I tried helping other people too."

Elise nodded. "You're a genuinely good person, Arno," she said.

"Don't give me too much praise," Arno said wryly. "It's not like I have any idea how I'm actually going to _do_ any of that."

"But you're at least going to try," Elise pointed out. "And I believe in you. If you try, I know you'll give it everything you have. And you… you have so much, Arno. You'll succeed."

"And—when, or if, or whatever, I do decide to go to college, you'll still be waiting for me, won't you?" Arno asked. His voice was a little more anxious than he wanted it to be, and Elise could obviously hear that, because her next words sounded like they were meant to be reassuring.

"I'll wait for you forever," she said. "Whatever your future might hold. We've seen so much together already, Arno. College isn't going to be the thing that pulls us apart."

He smiled, chest feeling lighter than it had for weeks. And then he kissed her, and did not stop.

-/-

Shay left the house alone, about forty five minutes after Elise and Arno had gone. He didn't particularly want to head out to the cemetery tonight, but he was starting to learn that was the problem of being psychic. He didn't always get to choose what he saw, and sometimes he saw himself doing things he'd really rather not.

Like today. Shay picked up the insulated box that had been sitting on a shelf in the garage since the two Hopes had been switched back to their appropriate universes. Apparently, it was time to return it to its rightful owner. Or at least, to the brother of its rightful owner.

Shay left the box in the backseat during the drive to the cemetery, which was probably not the greatest of ideas. If it had fallen off the seat, most likely the jar inside would have broken, and then Shay would have had an enormous mess to clean up. It was just that he really didn't want to look at it.

He parked in the cemetery, grabbed the box, and walked out to Kadar's grave. He already knew, from his vision, that Malik would be there, but frankly Shay would have known that anyway. Malik spent quite a lot of time at his brother's grave these days, so much that sometimes Shay thought Hope might as well have killed both of them.

Malik didn't say anything until Shay stopped right next to him, and then he just looked up, irritated. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

Shay tried not to take it personally. Malik was Malik. He was caustic, and he was abrupt, and he was in pain. Shay could take a few rough words, considering the circumstances. "I saw a vision," he said. "That it was time to return something to you." He sat down a little distance away from Malik, and set the box on the ground between them. "I'm sorry I held onto it for so long, but until I saw the vision, I thought it would do more harm than good for you to have this."

Malik stirred himself a little, reaching curiously for the box. Shay waited impassively until Malik had opened the top and pulled out what was inside. The jar that the other Hope had put Kadar's heart into on the day that she killed him.

"Where did you get this from?" Malik asked.

"Hope had it," Shay said. "Bad Hope, I mean, the mass murderer one. And when we sent her home, she left behind a lot of her stuff. Including… that. Your brother's heart. I would have brought it back before except I thought you wouldn't want to see it."

Malik nodded absently, and he seemed to suddenly slump, as if the sight of Kadar's heart in the jar had taken all the stress away from him. There was still that same sorrow etched on his face, but he didn't look like he was forcing himself to be strong any longer. He looked… more human, now. Like he was finally allowing himself to feel.

"I don't _want_ to see it," he said. "But I thought she had it. Or she'd done something awful with it. I didn't want to think that she still had some part of my brother."

"Well, I don't blame you for that," Shay said. "I wouldn't want her to have any part of someone I loved."

Malik nodded, but said nothing, not for a long time. "Thank you," he managed at last. "And thank you for bringing it today."

"Well, like I said." Shay shrugged. "I had that vision. Why is today important?"

"Because we're leaving tomorrow," Malik said. "Me and Altair and Desmond. We're going back to the homestead."

"Yea?" Shay asked, and Malik shrugged and nodded together. "Well, good for you."

"It's my home," Malik said. "Now that Kadar's gone, what reason do I have to stay here? All I've ever wanted to do was study magic."

"And now you'll have the chance," Shay said. "And I'm not surprised Altair is going back, but Desmond too?"

"I guess he and his father are giving it another chance," Malik said. He flashed a smile, just for a second. It was still more than Shay had seen from him in months. "I guess they really bonded over punching out a mass murderer."

"Well, that kind of thing leaves an impact," Shay said. He stood up, brushing dirt from his pants. "Good luck, Malik," he said. "Not that you'll need it."

"Thank you."

Shay touched Kadar's headstone briefly, and then headed home.

-/-

The house was quiet and dark when Shay finally got there. He'd decided to drive around town for a little while first, just thinking, and it was after midnight when he eventually parked his car in the driveway and headed inside.

He fully expected Hope to be in bed already, and she was. The baby was really starting to exhaust her, and she was usually in bed before ten these days. Shay went upstairs, checked to make sure she wasn't having nightmares, and smiled when he saw that she was actually sleeping peacefully for once. He wasn't tired yet, so he went back down to the kitchen.

On the way past the living room, Shay paused. He'd assumed Arno would still be out with Elise, but there he was. Stretched out on the couch with his face buried in a pillow and his left shoe abandoned on the floor nearby.

His right shoe, predictably, was nowhere to be found.

"Hey, Arno," Shay said softly, stepping into the room. "Are you alright?"

"Hmm?" Arno rolled over on the couch and smiled when he saw Shay, shifting his feet up to give Shay room to sit down. "Hey."

"What are you doing home already?" Shay asked. "Did something happen?"

Arno shook his head. "No. Elise and I had a talk and then we, um…" he flushed, and smiled.

"Arno," Shay said, in tones of mock disapproval. "Do we need to have the talk?"

"What?" He tossed a pillow in Shay's direction (Shay caught it) and stuck out his tongue. " _No_. Elise's dad gave that to both of us when we were thirteen. He did it together, and we'd already heard it all from the kids at school _years_ before that, it was the most awkward conversation ever."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Shay, no!" Arno protested, laughing. "Don't you dare!"

"I might…"

"Shay!"

It was good to laugh and like this, to just be here together and know that they didn't have to separate any time soon. There were no more curses, no more homicidal maniacs, no more terrifying trials for Shay's right to exist. Just this, with Arno, and with Hope, and (in a few more months) with the baby.

"It wasn't like that, anyway," Arno said, when at last they had finished laughing. "We were on a roof anyway, that would have been a shitty first time."

"Why were you on—ah, never mind." Shay shook his head. Even after all this time, he would never completely understand Arno. Really, it was better that way. It kept things interesting. "So you had a good night?" he asked.

"Yea," Arno said. "I'm just… feeling really good about the future right now. And the present."

"Me too," Shay admitted.

"Hmm." Arno's eyes were drifting shut, closing for a few moments and then opening again as he forced himself to stay awake. There was something almost childishly innocent about the expression, and Shay smiled in fond remembrance of the kid he had met so many years ago.

"Don't ever change, Arno," he said softly, squeezing Arno's hand softly. "You're growing up, you're growing into someone I can't help but be proud of. But deep down, you're still the same person. You care so much about everyone, and about…" he swallowed. "About me, Arno. Maybe you don't know how lonely I was before we met. Everyone I ever cared about thought I was a monster, because of the accident that forced me to leave Davenport. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life on my own. I thought people could just look at me and _know_ that there was something wrong.

"And then there was you. And when you looked at me, all you saw were the good things."

"Yea, well…" Arno squeezed his hand back. "I only learned how to love people by watching you."

"You would have figured that out yourself," Shay said. His voice caught in his throat. "You're too good of a person not to. I do love you, though. I have for almost as long as we've known each other."

"Duh," Arno mumbled, around the insistent press of sleep. "I love you too, dad." Arno's smile was fixed on his face as he drifted off to sleep, and Shay settled himself more comfortably on the couch at his side. He was smiling himself as he followed Arno into sleep, truly and absolutely relaxed in a way he would once have thought impossible.

His struggle was over. His fight was _won_. And it had been hard, getting here, carving out his own place in the world with his family. But he'd done it. Less than a year ago, Shay wouldn't have been able to imagine things turning out as well as they had.

Tonight, like every other night for the past several months, Shay fell asleep happy, and hopeful that whatever happened tomorrow would somehow be even better than today.

 **-/-**

 **Well... this is it. *sheds tears* Huge thanks to all the people that stuck with it through my abysmal grammar, my wandering plot, all the other weirdness this fic has contained. I really enjoyed writing it, and I hope at least a few of you got a kick out of it as well.**

 **Note, November 8, 2015: I have already had several comments from people asking about such and such side character, and what happened to them. I can't make any promises on when or even if I'll come back and write more in this world, but if you want to know about any side characters, please keep your eyes on _From Time to Time_ , the collection of shorter companion pieces to this fic.**


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